In article ,
Ignoramus18484 wrote:

Some pictures of my house are at:

http://igor.chudov.com/misc/house/cascade/

This is actually a three story house. The third floor is basically one
nice big bedroom, plus a shower, a bat, and toilet. 5 bedrooms, 4.1
bathrooms. 3400 square feet above ground plus basement.

The wall studs are 2x4s spaced 16 inch apart.

What I am thinking is

1. expanding second floor to continue over the garage and
2. making this third floor the same dimensions as the whole house,
instead of it being one big room it would be much bigger, same size as
first and second floor.

My questions a

1. Is this feasible architecturally/structurally?

2. How much such a thing could cost (some top limit).

3. Am I likely to get a permit for it?

4. Is this so crazy that I should give up even thinking about it?

5. How much value would be added to the house, compared to the amount
spent, given that the house is in a nice neighborhood comprised of
nice but not excessive 4 bedroom homes.

Thanks!


I'm not in the trades, so I'll leave questions 1-3. But I am a homeowner
(and one considering a major expansion as well), so I'll give my take on
4-5.

Is it crazy? Not if you really need the space. You house *looks* pretty
castle-esque from the outside, but people don't live on the outside, and
photos can be deceiving. If you're just wanting to expand for the sake
of expanding, it just means you have too much money

I think "value" is something that people who want to expand wrestle with
all the time, but it's kind of hard to answer in one specific way
because "value" means different things to the people who live there, to
the banks, to the resale buyers, and to what the local market will bear.
Even major expansions that would be outlandish and foolish in one
neighborhood would make total sense in the neighborhood right next to
it. The final authority would be the bank because they're pretty
sensitive to the cost/value equation involved, but other than that, I
think the answer lies more in whether you'd be expanding to bring your
home more in line with the others in the neighborhood (i.e. making a 3BR
into a 4BR in a hood with 4BRs), or expanding to give your place more
bang for a *reasonable* more buck -- in other words, raising its value
without making it *too* valuable and so inconsistent with the
neighborhood that it'll end up being something of a white elephant.
Kings don't live with the middle class, and the middle class can't
afford to live with kings. Likewise, if you're going to be doing
something with all that space that has some broad appeal that no other
houses in the neighborhood offer (i.e. in-law suite, etc.), then there
is value in it because resale buyers will definitely pay a bit more for
a house like that compared to others for sale at the same time in the
neighborhood -- provided your improvements don't require your house to
be priced out of the market in order for you to recoup as much of your
additional investment as possible.

If you know with 100% certainty that you'll never move and have cash on
hand to finance pretty much all of the expansion, "value" becomes a moot
point. You're doing it just for you, and if you're going to die there,
then it's not all that crazy. But just remember -- when you're 90 years
old, you'll still be dusting and vacuuming all that empty space that
used to be filled with kids and their stuff.

AJS