Home renovations - need advice

In My Humble Opinion
1

My wife and I want to do the following to our home:

Replace a shed
Add a detached garage with a room/apt above
Add a second story addition
Replace above ground pool with inground.
How does this work? I know we need to interview design/builders and check references. We’ve thought about using an architect and letting them be the general contractor to run the whole project. Is that a waste of money? Should we select 3-5 builders and ask for plans/bids? Do they prepare plans/bids for free? Should we do it all at once (shorter disruption) or phase the projects over time?

I don’t know where to start.

Thanks for the help.

2

I’m sure other, more knowledgable people will be by shortly, but I think a good place to start would be a visit to the building department at your local town/city hall. This will help you get a feel for the local regulations and zoning restrictions.

3

If you have the money to do it all at once, then the contractors may give you a break for it. Is the tax benefits less if you do it all in one year?

Also, they have pretty good sheds at home depot that you and a couple of beer-buddies could put together over a long weekend. (don’t listen to the box).

4

We do most of our home improvements ourselves - and we plan to build our next house ourselves, contracting out what we don’t want to do - like drywall. But that’s not important here, except as background to our own experience.

Don’t act as your own contractor unless you know what you’re doing, including how to schedule the work.

Ask around for personal experiences with builders and contractors before choosing one. Had we done that, we could have avoided the contractor who drank and we wouldn’t have been 2 months behind promised completion.

Be prepared for it to take longer and cost more than you expect, just because.

Good luck!!

5

Just a caveat to check with your zoning rules before starting a separate apt. above the garage - also about detached garage.

A friend denver added a new garage to his house, with a studio apartment above the car space (for his college-age teen).

The zoning rules said the garage had to be attached to the house via an interior door and that the full apartment above it was not allowed. They made him remove the kitchenette facilities he had added. He replaced it with a “wet-bar” - the stove was lost, though.

-B

6

get references, check work (in-progress, if possible - good contractors keep the site clean - even if you can’t tell an EMT from type L pipe, you can tell if the site is clean).

the ‘detached garage with apt above’ is, in fact, a second residence - CHECK ZONING!!!

If you put in a pool, expect to live there the rest of your lives - they do VERY little to improve the selling price of the home.

If the work is to be done in phases, work from the back of the lot forward - don’t put the second house down and THEN realize you’ll need to get a mixer truck in to pour the pool.

Also, you may run into problems with water, electrical, and sewage capacity - find out FIRST if adding another kitchen/bath(s) will exceed the sewage capacity - and if you’re going to heat that pool electrically…

and another big GOTCHA that may be waiting - the 2[sup]ND[/sup] story addition - if the external walls are not strong enough, you will not believe the cost - if your house was built since 1950, you should be OK - check the external wall studs - they should be at least 2x6 on 16" centers (my house uses 2x4 on 16" - CUTE).

Also, your current ceiling beams were designed to hold up the plaster/gypsumboard ceiling. They will most certainly NOT be adequate as floor joists.

See if there is a contractor familiar with such work on such houses in your neighborhood - he/she may be able to supply the engineering required to get the permits - otherwise look for an architect.

Notes:

the above assume frame construction on min. 8"x16" poured concrete footing.

if septic tank is used, good luck - I have no idea how to test for available capacity

7

Well, you could research at your local city building department. That’s what I do. Ask them all you want.

Expect them to know what you can do & expect them to come out to the site often to inspect what you are doing & we had to pay them too!

I saw a list once on what additions paid for themselves in higher home value, but it seemed the most you could get was 60% of what you paid for the addition, for some additions & a lot less on other additions.

8

Whatever you do, don’t hit your thumb with your hammer. That hurts. A lot.

9

This is a complete guess, but an architect will probably charge somewhere around ten to fifteen percent of the final cost of the project. They will save you much more than the amount of their bill. I was about to list examples of how an experienced GC can save you money, but the list would have been way too long to post here (and I have very limited experience in construction.) If nothing else, the rent for a second home while you schedule the work yourself and try to round up subcontractors for a one-shot job may exceed the cost of hiring an architect/GC.

I don’t see how the projects are interconnected, so you could probably do the jobs separately without it costing much more, but I would discuss this with your builder/architect. Personally, I’d probably do the pool after the garage and second story since that would use a completely different crew. I’d also build the shed myself at the end of the work, but that’s because my city goes by ICBO code which allows homeowners to build their own storage sheds without going through the permitting process.

And yes, Kamandi, it hurts. Oragel is a good thing to put on a bandaid.