We fortunatly were able to find a home inspector who had a degree in structural engineering to do the initial inspection on the house, before we closed. We started our process knowing that the house would be able to sustain a second floor.
We started the actual remodel in 2008 and finished the project 8 months later in 2009. We were less than 5% over budget, and about 6 weeks over our expected construction time. Our house was under 2000 sq/ft to begin with and we ended up with over 3700 sq/ft. We added a second floor and remodeled almost the entire first floor. The original house was built in 1956 on slab, we put in all new plumbing, electrical and HVAC. In the end we did not hire an architect, and I was the primary designer on the house. Through this blog I will be detailing the experiences, and the process I went through in designing our custom home. As I add posts I will submit bulleted lists of points that were critical throughout our process to design ourselves a home.
So here is todays list:
What to consider in choosing the right home to remodel:
- Ability of home to sustain a remodel
- Location
- Size of lot
- Exposure to the sun
- Location of the house on your plot
- What are your cities limitations on home extensions, i.e., not to exceed 30 ft high, setbacks along property lines, lot coverage limitations,
- fire safety requirements, are sprinklers in your future?
- Home owner associations may have restrictions on what you build
- Does your home have blue prints filed with the city or county, (ours had burned in a warehouse fire, so we were at square one when it came to blueprints of the existing house.)
