Your house is tight on space and you’re desperate to squeeze in a little more room. A home addition is a perfect solution for your problem. These are five options that you should consider:
1. Finishing The Attic
Stop letting your attic gather dust and cobwebs. You can finish it and turn it into a comfortable living space.
A big advantage of your attic is that it will give you the opportunity to bring in lots of natural light through skylights and windows. You won’t get access to that kind of view in the rest of the house.
Before you start your renovation, contact a professional to investigate your attic to see whether it’s structurally sound enough to become a living space. If it’s not, an engineer may need to strengthen your attic floor so that it can handle the weight of heavy furniture and residents walking back and forth over it. You certainly don’t want to step into your attic and have your foot fall through the floor.
2. Finishing The Basement
The basement is often a neglected area of the house. It’s usually treated as a mixture of a storage container and a laundry room instead of a comfortable living space. But if you invest some time and effort into finishing your basement, it could offer you a lot of extra square footage.
One of the benefits of finishing your basement is that you can install another bathroom down there. Your basement is often where the laundry room is, so you will already have access to plumbing connections and even floor drains down there. This will be much easier than installing a bathroom in an attic.
3. Making A Bump Out
A bump out is a small home addition. You simply stick an extra room to the side of the house — hence the name “bump out.” The room will not be very large, but it can give you that little extra bit of space that you’re looking for. For instance, you could add a spacious pantry beside your kitchen, or you could turn a cramped powder room into a large bathroom.
4. Converting Your Garage
Stop using your garage as a junk storage unit. If you’re desperate for extra space, you can convert your garage into a functional living space. This is a good idea when your garage is already connected to the electrical grid and your house’s plumbing system. With those utility connections, your hardest tasks should be adding insulation, drywall and flooring.
5. Building An Adu
Have you heard of an ADU? An ADU is an accessory dwelling unit. It’s a small, secondary living space that sits on your property. It’s sometimes called a granny flat or a backyard cottage.
If you have a lot of yard space, you could build yourself an ADU out of a new shipping container. Learn how to build a container home in your backyard through a handful of steps. The process might be simpler than you’d think. At the very least, it’s simpler than building a secondary home entirely from scratch.
A shipping container speeds up the construction process of an ADU since it’s a ready-made frame. You’ll have a durable structure that you can modify until it becomes the secondary home of your dreams.
A shipping container home could give you extra space for a guest room, a hobby shed or even a remote office away from the distractions of your house. It can be just about anything you need.
Your space isn’t as limited as you think. You actually have plenty of ways to increase the square footage in your house. Consider these five types of home additions!