building a home addition - what you should knowbuilding a home addition - what you should know


About Me

building a home addition - what you should know

When building an addition to an existing home, many things can go wrong. If you don't know what you are doing, the addition may not be structurally sound, it may leak water and the electrical system could put the entire home at risk of a fire. When I added two bedrooms to the back of my house, I thought that it was going to be an easy project that could be completed in no time. Little did I know that there is a lot of planning that goes into this type of project. This blog will show you what you need to know before you begin building an addition.

Tags

New Staircases In Old Houses

You've probably seen some of the popular home remodeling shows on television. Many feature contractors, interior designers, and real estate agents who purchase rundown, shabby homes to flip—remodel and sell for a profit. Others feature these industry professionals convincing young couples that if they completely gut this inexpensive but awful home with good bones in a great neighborhood and remodel it, they can have the home of their dreams.

In a lot of the gut jobs, they hire an interior staircase installation service to rip out the existing staircase or put one in where there wasn't before. Here's a look at the advantages of relocating or adding a staircase.

You Can Completely Restructure The Existing Floor Plan

The modern family doesn't live the way families of yesteryear used to, and that changes how they use their space. If you look at the way homes are built today, you will see open floor plans with rooms that flow from one room to the next. This enables the family to essentially have one central gathering space, where Mom can cook dinner while supervising the children in the adjoining family room.

Older homes are not built this way. They tend to have individual, rectangular rooms that are private and closed off from one another. The typically small kitchens are usually tucked away at the back of the house, far from the rest of the family. Older homes also usually seriously lack closets and storage space. They also tend to have small bathrooms, sometimes only one! This is not what most people want in a home today. By relocating the staircase, they can break up the boxy feel and truly think outside of the box.

You Can Add Another Level

Some older homes are simple one-story homes with the standard living room, eat-in-kitchen, the traditional 5x7 bathroom, and two small bedrooms. Often, they are on equally small, narrow lots, leaving no room to add on horizontally.

That leaves adding on vertically the only option if they need more space. Building a second story obvious requires building a new staircase as well. While this will take up some of the first-floor footprint, re-configuring the first floor and adding another level will essentially double the living space and make it much more useable.

You Can Actually Use The Basement

Most older homes have creepy basements with equally scary staircases that are narrow and steep. Remodeling the basement will add bonus space, and installing a new safe staircase will make it more accessible.

Visit a website like woodstairs4u.com for more information.