Replies

1. 
   Pgaski | Jan 25, 2008 02:48am | #1

   I should also add that I have 5 kids. This is the need for the additional room.

   3 girls 10yrs and under

   Twin Boys 3yrs old

1. 
   ToolFreakBlue | Jan 25, 2008 03:11am | #2

   Where are you located (Hint: Fill out your profile)Which direction do you want to go? Which direction can you go?
   out the back, up, to the left?
   TFB (Bill)BTW, This was my 500th post - Look out Piffin!

   Edited 1/24/2008 7:14 pm by ToolFreakBlue

1. 
   Pgaski | Jan 25, 2008 04:34am | #4

   The house sits on and Acre of land with 32 acres of woods behind. The min set back is 15 feet on either side and 35' in the front. On the garage side (side entry garage) I have 40' Avail. on the other end of the ranch there is only 20' avail.

   I would like to go up, adding bedrooms up stairs. With it only 25' front to back I'll have to expand out the back to accommodate a 12-12 Pitched roof. I think they make a truss that will span 25' from the back wall  to the front wall. This may be to costly of a solution. I was thinking of just adding on to one end of the house. I am open to anyone that has tackled this type of job on a ranch house. Hide sight is always 20/20.

   Paul

2. 
   ToolFreakBlue | Jan 25, 2008 03:12am | #3

   And welcome to Breaktime.
   TFB (Bill)

2. 
   ted | Jan 25, 2008 04:40am | #5

   Vheck this link out you might get some ideas:

   http://books.google.com/books?id=38QzH9b7YhgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=subject:%22Ranch+houses%3B+United+States.%22&sig=dFXRICAtLJddbb34WpS0YYm_sCk

3. 
   Jer | Jan 25, 2008 05:40am | #6

   I presently live in the same house, a ranch built in the 60's with a fully finished basement. Five years ago I built an addition going out on the one end like an L. It's a cathedral ceiling master bed with wi closets full bath etc. I also excavated for a full room below which now adjoins the rest of the basement. Except for the excavation & block work I did everything myself. Along with that I resheathed, reroofed and resided the entire house. I was glad to have done it all myself but looking back, I would have hired more of it done and payed the extra $$ and just done the finishing & painting myself. It took me almost 2.5 years soup to nuts, weekends, vacations etc etc. The time I was working on it could have been time I was making money to supliment things like a roofer, sheet rocker or a sider. But.....'tis done now.

   We are new 'empty nesters' as the kids are off to college & the rest of their lives, and so we have more than enough room for the two of us. It sounds like you may want a little more room than what I put on. Going up on a ranch is certainly do-able, maybe like a 2 story version of what I did. I would think about only doing it to one end of the house so you can have some sort of sanity & life while it's going on.
   By the way, if you have a poured foundation like I do and are breaking through to the existing basement, hire a core cutter to come and do it. It's probably the best $1000 I spent on that project.

1. 
   Pgaski | Jan 26, 2008 07:52pm | #8

   Thanks, I was thinking the exact same thing. Just adding onto on end of the house. Making it two story. Did you ever figure out your cost per square foot? I was going to make it two story with a new kitchen on the first floor.

    

   Paul

1. 
   IdahoDon | Jan 26, 2008 08:09pm | #9

   Thanks, I was thinking the exact same thing. Just adding onto on end of the house. Making it two story. Did you ever figure out your cost per square foot? I was going to make it two story with a new kitchen on the first floor.

   Based on the second floors and additions we've built this is a very good way to go.  Costs will be close to any new construction.

   However, if you have a good foundation and well built walls so the first floor can support a second floor with little difficulty, you can add second floor living space with trusses for about the same cost or a little less per finished sqft. 

   If your roof is in bad shape this option takes care of that problem and becomes even more feasible.  Ive seen a best case senario where the cost for an upstairs second floor was barely $50/sqft, but this is rare (the first floor was almost built for a second floor from day one).

   On the other hand if your first floor needs extensive reinforcing to support a second floor then the addition is probably 25% less expensive.  We've put second floors on that were finished modestly, but were more like $200-$250/sqft because of the design and weak first floor.

   If you have the space and the design fits your idea of how it should look, an addition is definitely how I'd go.

   Best of luck 

   Beer was created so carpenters wouldn't rule the world.

2. 
   Hudson Valley Carpenter | Jan 26, 2008 10:10pm | #10

   Thanks, I was thinking the exact same thing. Just adding onto on end of the house. Making it two story. Did you ever figure out your cost per square foot? I was going to make it two story with a new kitchen on the first floor.

   Welcome to Breaktime!

   A simpler way, one that you've probably considered, is to do a remodel of the current place, adding two or more bedrooms on the basement level.  At 66'X25', three bedrooms should still leave you a lot of space for recreation, home theater, storage, etc. 

   Going at it that way, you could use the three downstairs bedrooms while you complete the remodel of the upstairs space, one room at a time. 

   There are many reasons to keep the current structure in tact, not add on.  Most of them are financial, rising energy prices for example, but keeping family life as simple and stress free as possible with that many young children is big too.

   Best wishes to you and yours.

4. 
   alwaysoverbudget | Jan 25, 2008 05:53am | #7

   i'm going to throw in something i experienced when doing a pretty good size addition ,started 4 years ago,work day and night for a year,then next year in the eves..the biggest cost to me on this was i had a 15 year old daughter and i pretty much missed,all the  homecomings and proms etc.

   this was something i didn't see coming and now i'm done ,she's off to college and here sit my wife and i in this great house.i think i find it impossible to hire something like this done,so if i was to do this again i would have waited till she was gone.

   i do understand with 5 kids you need room now,but don't give up those ball games and soccer etc. ,build a smaller addition and hire it all done. larry

   on the plus side i'm sure my daughter has some good memories's of the christmas tree decorated with saw dust etc. so not a total lost.

   if a man speaks in the forest,and there's not a woman to hear him,is he still wrong?

5. 
   webted | Jan 28, 2008 09:41pm | #11

   Hi Paul:

   We're planning an addition to our mid-70's rambler (sitting on one acre) as well. We've largely ruled out going up for 3 reasons:

   1. Engineering costs for designing 2nd floor/1st floor hinge in seismic country (in our case, with a stucco exterior we can't even verify the sheathing nailing schedule without extensive demo work)
   2. It's tough to live in a house while the lid is off
   3. You destroy more intrinsic value of the home (i.e. you paid for those ceilings when you bought the place, now you're going to pay to rip them out and rebuild them) when you modify the existing structure.

   We'll add about 1000sf by going out the back of the place. Your case will be unique, but our approach is to have a GC handle the buildout through the drywall inspection, with the exception of windows, which I'll do myself. With creative planning, you can have 75+% of this work done before knocking a hole in your house.

   You might consider going with a GC to a clear point (drywall inspection in our case). The dollars you spend will be paid back in time you aren't sorting out arguments between the drywall crew and sparky. Because the high dollar materials come at the end, you're only paying the GC markup on the material cheap/labor expensive part of the job. Which is where most of the logistic headaches come, anyways.

   Good luck, and post some pictures every now and then.