Home Addition FAQs

The contractor and the main work should be finished in late September/early October, but there will be other tasks such as tiling (kitchen + 2 bathrooms), doing the trim work, and building bookcases in the old living room, which will take longer since we're doing them ourselves (notice no dead line).

How big is it?

We're adding about 1,150 SF plus the basement level 2-car garage. The addition will represent about 40% of the finished home. The work also includes the remodeling of over a third of the 1,600 SF original house.

So 4 bedrooms, that means you're planning on having more children (wink - wink)?

That's right, we've been hiding it from some, but we would now like to go on the record as saying: Bethany considers herself a baby factory and Randy believes it his civic duty to create as many R-androids to make the world as better a place as possible, and we're going to try for an even dozen. That's our story and don't expect a more rational answer until we've decided to stop and Randy gets the big V.

What will it cost?

Although no one has directly asked, it's floated about, so here's an answer: About twice what out pre-bid hopeful and deluded Wild Ass Guess was; almost half again more than Randy originally paid for the place 14 years ago but less than the current place and lot are worth (which wasn't the case with a couple of the bids).

Why are you doing so much of this yourselves?

Many have openly wondered why we are doing so much of this ourselves. Well in case you hadn't guessed, its mostly Randy's thing (like the web page). For starters, he's a typical engineer, which means he's thrifty and resourceful (i.e. cheap) and an egocentric who thinks he can do most things himself based on glancing at pictures in a book. He also likes showing it off for others, even if the results frequently prove otherwise. But primarily its because he likes to build and to create things, figuring out how to make the visions in his mind come out (not standard hobby listing but pretty much what his hobbies are). He's been thinking about this off and on for over a decade and seriously played with the idea of doing most ALL of it himself (thankfully that wasn't attempted).

So the creative brainpower required of helping excavate a hole, pouring the concrete garage floor, driveway and sidewalk doesn't exactly require a Da Vinci. Still he's gained a great deal of practical knowledge and experience in construction and respect for those who do it all the time (something not usually imparted in college), lost some much needed weight and built up some muscles. Hopefully this also translates into having a better job at less cost than if we contracted it all out (and if not we don't want to know).

The remainder of the sub-projects we've retained such as landscaping, building a retaining wall, painting, trimming and tiling several rooms, building bookcases, etc. will also be lots of work but hopefully less critical to the project time line (and hence likely to drag on for awhile).

Have you heard that home building and remodeling are major stresses in a marriage and a leading cause of divorce?

Really? That's seems odd, we've been getting on terrifically throughout the whole process.