Oh, boy. Where do I even begin?
We’ve been considering the options for renovating our home for quite some time. I believe when I went back and looked at notes I’d taken, I began meeting and discussing things with people two years ago. Ugh… it pains me to even write that. But, it’s all a process and big life decisions like this take time.
our existing home
To give you an idea of where we started from, I’ll give you some basic specs and history of our existing home. It was originally built in 1896 – an old farmhouse. I’m not exactly sure what it looked like at that time, but today it is a single-story two-bedroom, one-bathroom house. It’s roughly 1300 square feet.
At some point, there have been a few additions to the house. From what we can tell, they added two wings to each end of the home. Those have crawl spaces under them, and the center square (what we believe was the original home) has an old three-room, clay-block basement under it. Access to this basement is from the outside.
Once our firstborn arrived, we realized pretty quickly that we’d need a bit more space down the road if we planned to have more children. And that’s when the gears started turning.
if time and money were no issue
Ah… if time and money were no issue. Wouldn’t that be something?! If we had the financial freedom to make this decision, we’d likely tear down our existing house and rebuild on our property. Fortunately/Unfortunately (however you want to look at it. Ha!), we aren’t in a position financially to do that right now.
There were many, many conversations about whether this was our “forever home” or not. These are big discussions. But we always came back to the fact that we love our location and property. It’s in the school district we’d like to raise our children. It’s near both sides of our family. We have the seclusion and space we desire, with plenty of room for different opportunities we’ve considered and dreamt about. We also have great access to the main roads we use frequently.
And, we also know that with the current real estate market, we won’t find this “whole package” in the price range we have to work with. There would always be something lacking. If we bought the house of our dreams, we’d be giving up our space and land. If we bought the land we loved, we’d have to build or make a significant investment in the existing house.
We went down many roads trying to figure out what was going to be best for our family and our future. We got quotes to build, we looked into plots of land in our area, we even put an offer in on a home we loved, but knew we’d be sacrificing too many important aspects of our existing property if we bought it, and ended up not moving forward with that.
So, to say we’ve toiled over this entire situation would be an understatement. It’s been hashed and re-hashed over the past couple of years. We eventually came to the conclusion that we love our existing property and in order to create more functional spaces for our family’s needs, we’d simply need to invest in what was already here.
hash and re-hash
Once we made the decision to invest in our existing property, we had other big decisions to sift through. We needed to determine how far we were going to go right now, while also keeping in mind what the end goal was for our home.
One of the first options we looked into was lifting our entire house and putting a basement under the entire thing (yes, you can do this). This would be great for many, many reasons. However, we don’t really need that much space (although I guarantee we’d fill it up eventually!), and it would require us to live elsewhere while the entire project was going on – somewhere in the 6ish month range most likely.
The cost wasn’t absolutely outrageous for this to be done (in our opinion), but we couldn’t justify making that financial investment and not have our most immediate needs met in doing so – another bedroom and bathroom. Back to the drawing board…
This is really when we started looking into all of our other options that I mentioned above, making sure we weren’t missing a better or less complicated solution.
We ended up back re-working plans to invest in our existing property. With our immediate needs in mind only – not considering our end “forever home” – we went down the path of adding an addition that would consist of a master bedroom suite. We thought this would be a great option to get us what we need right now.
By this point, I’d taken on the brunt of this work (because I am more interested and enjoy these types of projects for our family), and I’d about had it. We were to the point where something needed to move forward or we’d just not do anything at all… and that wasn’t really an option either!
Contractors – Finding a Good Fit
Finally, we met a contractor that we felt really comfortable with – Dennis with PLS Builders. He put in the effort and work on the front end that provided a solid foundation of education and information for us to work from. We’d yet to meet a contractor that fulfilled these needs for us. It was very refreshing, relieving, and made both of us feel like we were finally in good hands and knew exactly what to expect.
We had many meetings and discussions going over the project details.
After further contemplation, I just couldn’t wrap my head around adding only the master suite now, only to brace and lift the house a couple of years down the road to add a basement.
Since we’d be paying for a foundation under the addition now, it seemed silly to pay for that and then tear it out to put the basement in later. So, we came up with a nice solution that will serve our current needs, as well as lay a foundation (quite literally) for future growth as needed.
Along with Dennis, we decided to hire my Dad to take on the basement/foundation portion of the project (we hired Bissell House Moving to brace and lift the house). He’d recently just completed a very similar job for one of their flip houses, so we were very confident in his abilities to help us with our home.
I’d highly recommend finding contractors who take the time to lay things out with you. It may take some time…it certainly took us quite a while, but it is worth it, in the end, to feel comfortable with who you’re working with on this big of a project.
It’s also important to note that when we were considering our options from a financial standpoint, we kept in mind the potential that we could/would move someday (not likely, but you never know). With that in mind, we also worked to make smart decisions that would increase the value of our home and make it more appealing and functional for someone else than it currently is for us.
I come from a family that’s been involved in the real estate business for many years, so I’ve learned that it’s important to consider resale value when making updates to your home. Yes, you should make it yours and what you like, but you also need to consider the functionality and appeal for other families down the road if you hope to earn a solid ROI from updates that you invest in over the years.
our final and current working plan
I am referring to the current project as Phase 1 of our long-term house renovation. There are quite a few steps in this phase, but the end product will give us a partial basement (roughly 650 sq. ft.) with access to our existing basement for storage. Then, we’ll be putting an addition on that will consist of a master suite – which will serve our most immediate needs.
The addition will flush up an odd corner of our home that has always bothered me, so I’m excited to see that transformation! Phase 1 of our long-term renovation plan will most definitely be the most intrusive and intensive part, so I am glad to get this portion done and out of the way!
The first steps of this project were to remove the brick veneer off the front of our house, plug a well, move a gas line, brace and lift a portion of our home, trench in drain tile for the basement, and begin digging the basement. Once we get the basement dug out, we’ll form the footings and walls. We’re using ICF (Insulated Concrete Foundation) for the basement walls. Then our addition will be built above one side of the basement, adjoining the existing home.
Here are the first steps of this phase in photo form:
1. Remove brick veneer where work will be done
2. Plug the well
3. Move a gas line
4. Brace and lift one end of the house
5. Trench in drain tile for basement
6. Dig out the basement
Ahhh! I’m so happy to finally be able to put this all into words. It’s been a long journey, and we’re nowhere near done, but it’ll be worth it when we are. Thanks for following along on the ride…I hope you enjoy watching the process and progress as much as I do!
Be sure to follow along in Facebook and Instagram Stories for more “live” updates! Have you lived through a house renovation? What is your advice? Or, share your tips, in the comments!
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