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Home Addition Designs
Home Addition Design and Planning
Considerations
By: Mark J. Donovan
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Before kicking off a home addition project it is imperative to first have a home
addition design and construction plan in place. There are numerous places to
find affordable home addition designs. Do a simple internet search on the web
and you can find a host of home addition designs on websites and magazines.
There are many generic stock home addition plans available for sale on these
websites and magazines. In many cases you can use them as is, however you can
also customize them a bit to meet your specific home addition design
requirements.
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Selecting a Home Addition Design
As an alternative to buying a stock home addition design, you can create your
own unique home addition plans via using a home addition design software
package. Again, there are many affordable home addition design software packages
to choose from. A home remodeling design software package typically costs about
as much as one or two hours of labor from an architect, so buying a home
addition design software package is well worth the investment.
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Even if you only use the home
addition design software package to create a basic floor plan to present to an
architect, it can save you money and help with the definition of your home
addition design in the long run.
When searching through stock home addition designs and plans it is best to look
for ones that are of the right scale to your existing home. It is important to
remember that you are planning an addition to your home, and not the other way
around. Typically the home addition should not exceed more than 1/3 the square
foot area of the existing home.
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Also make sure when evaluating home
addition designs that they are structurally and aesthetically appropriate for
your home. For example, putting on an adobe style home addition on to a colonial
style home is an unlikely match both structurally and aesthetically. I know this
is an extreme example, however stranger marriages between homes and home
additions have happened.
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Also, you may want to enlist the services of an architect for evaluating your
prospective home addition designs to make sure he/she doesn’t see any structural
issues. They may also be able to modify the home addition design and blend it in
better to the existing home.
Home Addition Construction Planning
Besides coming up with a home addition design, it is also imperative to have a
solid home addition construction plan in place. The home addition design is
essential for defining your home construction project and for pulling the
construction permits.
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A solid home addition construction
plan is critical for making sure the construction project goes smoothly and on
budget.
Photos by Mark Donovan
Take the time to interview multiple prospective home remodeling contractors and
check their references. Make sure to choose a home addition contractor that has
put together a very detailed schedule and construction bill of materials that is
consistent with your home addition design and plans. In general, the more
detailed the contractor bid, the increased likelihood that the home addition
construction project will go smoothly and on budget.
For more help on building a home addition, see HomeAdditionPlus.com's
Home
Addition Bid Sheets.
Our
Home
Addition Bid Sheets
provide you with the knowledge and information on how to plan a home addition project,
and what to look for when hiring contractors. They
also include detailed cost breakdown tables and spreadsheets for estimating
your own new home addition building costs.
How to Finance your Home Addition Project -
can help provide funds for your new home improvement project if financing is
required.
Related Home Addition Articles
Additional Home Construction Resources from Amazon.com
Free Home Addition
Price Quotes with No Obligation!
Fill out our 3-5 minute quick and easy form, and receive a free price quote
on a home addition from one of our prescreened and licensed home addition
contractors. This process is free and there is no obligation to continue once
you receive your home building estimate.
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