Adding square footage to your home is probably the best way to increase its overall value, take a look at our Home Additions Calgary services.
When considering having a major home addition done for your Calgary and surrounding area home, be sure that you choose a reputable company with a proven track record to work with.
Look for a contractor like Landen Design Build that offers you a one stop design build solution, and does not require any upfront architectural design deposit, nor any up front renovation deposit being required!
Choosing Landen is the right choice so that you can get exactly what you want done without any major hassles or issues occurring during the building process with our trusted custom home builders.
You only pay for services provided AFTER they are provided to you, as set out and mutually agreed to in milestone progress draws.
With renovations such as adding on to an existing home comes extra design requirements to ensure that the original structure can carry the loads of any new home addition, such as an added second floor, and being sure that everything will meet code once the home addition is complete.
To find out more about this process be sure to speak with a home improvement expert such as the team at Landen Design Build who can go over whatever home addition requirements will be necessary for increasing the square footage onto your home.
With our no charge initial project feasibility assessment you will get a very good idea of what can be done.
Also ask about our no charge initial preliminary design process that can include up to 30 hours of no charge architectural design time. (Contact us as some conditions apply)
If you’re looking into adding onto an existing home or building new construction in Calgary, contact Landen Design Build today to find out more about what home additions calgary services.
Whether you are looking to add a second-story addition or do a full basement renovation to turn your basement into an income suite, more living space will certainly always command a higher resale price.
For renovation or home addition projects like these, enlisting a professional Design–Build Firm like Landen Development Inc is the way to go.
Using Landen will allow you make a one stop solution to affordable architectural design with competitive and reasonable construction cost. Plus, with our 40 years of experience and access to quality trades, craftsmen and suppliers you can get direct access to our discounted contractor pricing.
If you use Landen Design Build for both our architectural planning services and our project management services at very competitive rates, which can also help stretch your renovation budget a little further.
Considering an addition to your existing home compared to building a new home can have a few more benefits than just saving on the moving cost!
An home addition can cost substantially less that building a new home, plus the fact that all the amenities of an older community will still be there vs a new home where all that needs to come LATER, Plus you still get to have mature trees, your kids still go to the same school etc. etc.
The big trick when thinking additions or adding a major renovation to your existing home is also adding resale value while you are at it! And, like other things in life, some renovations and additions can add value and others no so much. The fine line in adding space that you need is adding space that will also return the investment one day when it comes time to sell.
Then there are renovations or additions that don’t necessarily add much value, but do increase the usefulness and liveability of a home, which tend to become a bit of a horse trading event to get what you want within your set budget.
There are also home additions that can be added reasonably in what we contractors call the “sweet spot” of building cost, with other areas or designs that tend to have higher net pre. sq. ft. building cost.
This is where using an experienced Design-Build contractor like Landen can really come into play! A well planned addition can actually create added home equity over the actual renovation cost if planned right at the start!
Home additions in Calgary are a great way to update your home and increase the value of the property.
But, before you make any decisions, it is important to get professional advice from someone like Landen Design Build on what additions are feasible and will work best for your home.
Not all Calgary Homes Additions are feasible, as some planning authority restrictions may not allow what you want to build. Furthermore there may be other structural issues that may make an addition not as feasible to do. At Landen Design-Build we offer a no charge initial feasibility assessment of your home, with our proposed options for renovations or additions.
The size of your house should be a determining factor in what type of addition you want. For example, if your property doesn’t have enough land and yard/lot space available, you may need to consider adding on a second-story, or building out over an existing garage
In many cases the goal is to archive a more open floor plan, with larger open kitchen designs that cater to entertainment of your guest, or a media set-up’s with today’s large flat screen TV’s. To archive this, the homes of yesterday’s chopped up rooms need to be redesigned, and possibly repurpose existing bedrooms, dining rooms, and formal living rooms, meaning an addition may be one solution to say putting the bedrooms on a new second floor addition, to make room for the new open concept floor plan on the main floor level.
No two home additions may look alike. Some can be as simple as adding a single room addition, others can be a total revamp of the existing floor plan as well as adding a bunch of new square footage. Some additions can be added and made to blend into the existing exterior design, others may be done with an entire new face lift for the entire home!
We were recently featured in the Canadian Home Trends magazine in relation to our Home Additions service.
We do not sell or share your information or use your details for marketing purposes
A major addition can add not only space but also add value to your home, while also creating a more open well planned space that help the flow of how each room, and utilized the overall home more efficiently.
There are several reasons why you should consider adding onto your home, rather than thinking about moving!
Including:
There are two things you need to know up-front. First, will the home addition you want to build be “feasible”, meaning will the approving authorities even allow you to build the addition you want to add to your home. In some cases you will NOT be able to do what you want, and the only way to find out is by talking to the planning authorities, or engage someone like Landen to check this all out for you.
The second thing you will need, once you know the project is feasible, would be PLANS. And these generally come in two formats for home additions. The first format is Development Permit (DP) plans, these are not to be confused with Building permit Plans (BP).
DP plans are drawn up to show how the existing home, with its new addition will “blend into the street scape” with your neighbours, and will require a set of too scale street scape drawing of your neighbours homes, plus an architectural set of drawings for the proposed home addition showing before and after plans. (DP plans are not structural drawings)
If the DP is approved, you will then need BP drawings/plans completed, and these plans are generally considered “structural drawings” that need to be designed to meet all building code requirements.
One note: Home additions can be designed and built to look as if they were “always there” or designed to look like a real after thought of a sore thumb! Both ways could actually be approved by the planning authorities, as they are more concerned with meeting RED Tape requirements than aesthetics. However, an addition that LOOKS LIKE an addition to your home may not be the best value for buck spent!
Therefore engaging the RIGHT architectural designer with years of renovation and addition experience might be time and money well spent!
When having plans drawn up for an addition, it’s important to consider that the new addition will blend in well with the existing location of your house on a lot, and complements its surroundings, and does not end up look incomplete or out of place, or clash with the design and style of your existing home.
The selection of your contractor is another consideration; whereby using a Design-Build contractor like Landen, that has several decades of addition and renovation experience, will get the job done more efficiently and be more cost effective.
When thinking about an addition, make a list of your most pressing concerns. Ask yourself, “is more space at the top of that list”? Or, “Do you need more rooms”? Or, “Would adding more new space onto your existing living area offer the best value for your home”? More space requirements could be from the need for an in-law suite, playroom or art studio. Or you might need added rental income, in the form of an added legal suite. Or you are possibly planning space for being able age in place as long as you can as you get older, and then not have to move into seniors assisted living. (Note: we also have a “Seniors living-in-place” renovation program that helps creates rental income to support assisted living, and include safe companionship accommodation, while also working closely with the Nurse Next Door assistance programs) (See also CHIP financing options for Seniors)
Other considerations to keep in mind include home expansion options such as “garage conversions”. If for example you have a home with an attached single car garage, and have plenty of rear yard lot-room to build a new two car garage with alleyway access, then looking at converting the attached single car garage into new living space might be a good way to go, and create fairly cheap added living area. We have done this type of renovation /addition many times, and when complete you can’t tell there was a garage there in the first place.
Think about going out, or going up with a home addition! Going up is probably the least expensive way to build if you are wanting lots of extra square foot space, and in some cases may be the only way to add on to your home, if the homes building-lot’s foot print is already fully taken up. Keep in mind that going up will add stairs, which if planning on aging in place is a concern; you might want to look at making some spare room for an in-home elevator or stair-lift.
Going outward with a home addition is probably the most common addition that we do, but does require extra “lot-room” to achieve this extra added space. Going out additions generally come in two formats, one, where the addition will require a full foundation, or alternately an addition that is considered a bump-out that might be achieved by cantilevering the existing floor structure out over the existing foundation, or possibly using screw piles for larger bump-out additions!
The ends may justify the means when it comes to increasing square footage with an addition but it’s smart to review your wish lists before moving forward, and do your due diligence to make sure that, in the end, your home addition investment is something you will recover in resale value or will make your life easier or more pleasant.
If you’re thinking about adding more space to your home in the form of a major addition onto your home, there are several ways this can be done.
The two most common ways are adding-out/onto a building, or going up and adding new living space over top of an existing building.
Both methods will most likely require going through a full Development Permit (DP) process before you ever get to apply for a building permit.
Going-out additions will require “more lot-room” within the homes “lot footprint” meaning, some homes don’t have any lot-room left on the building site to be able to “add-on”. This can be especially the case for newer homes where they tend to squish in a home and use up every single square inch of building sites space. However many older homes built say 50 or more years ago, tend to have plenty of “spare lot-room to be able to “add-into”.
Going up, works especially well on most bungalow style homes, also on homes that are considered a “story and a half homes” or two story homes with an attached garage that could have a second floor added out over the garage.
One other addition that we have done several of, is a “bump-out” addition, in many cases we can add a “bump-out” addition without needing any foundation, or may only need one or two “screw-piles” to hold up the new addition.
In particular we have one very popular kitchen bump-out floor plan that adds a somewhat triangle shaped bump-out that only requires a single screw pile, but creates a much larger totally open kitchen island concept that rivals most new homes.
In some cases, it makes sense to plan your additions as part of a renovation. The additional space created can be redesigned and decorated to suit your new needs; and if you’re planning on using any “green” technologies such as solar panels, and heating and cooling systems – then you’ll want to do this before adding onto the house.
These projects may require costly upgrades that might be harder (or impossible) to install in existing spaces, but could easily be incorporated into a new addition.
We get asked all the time “can you build in the winter time”? This may sound funny, but winter time can be the best time to add a major addition to a home! Why? The simple answer is that it is much easier to keep snow out of an addition that to try and keep rain out! We can shovel snow out of an addition, but can’t shovel out rain. And, as most additions require the opening up of the existing homes walls and roof, that are then being left wide open to Mother Nature and her elements, can make winter time the best time to add-on! This however, does not mean that we can’t add onto your home in the summer time, just that more weather prevention protection may be needed for summer time construction.
The very first thing you need to do is engage an experienced designer, or better yet, a Design-Build firm, that specializes in major additions, such as Landen Design-Build.
We first come in and do a basic site analysis to see if your proposed addition ideas will even work! At Landen we offer a no charge initial site analysis that would report back to you the viability or feasibility of a major home addition project that is being contemplated. Meaning, both the feasibility of getting any needed permits, and the feasibility of getting the actual construction done, within a set budget amount.
Then the next step would be getting some preliminary planning done, where we at Landen would provide up to 30 hours of no charge architectural preliminary planning to further help in determining the feasibility of a project. (Some conditions apply to our 30 hours of no charge planning) From there a structural engineer would be required to inspect your home’s existing structure of foundation, floors and walls. In some case may also require an analysis that the existing utilities can handle the extra addition’s requirements for power and sewer capabilities. Plus look at any existing repair or upgrades to outdated wiring for plumbing upgraded to more modern installations.
If you’ve decided that an a major home addition makes sense for your family’s needs, then you also need to keep in mind that any major renovation or addition changes that you plan to make to your home will directly affect its “finished” market resale value, especially if you are increasing the square footage of your home.
However, you should also note that there is somewhat of a “sweet spot” when considering a major addition. You want to first look to see if other homes in the same community are also being “added to” and make sure that you are not going to be the “largest home” in the community. That way when it comes time to sell one day down the road, you won’t be “outside of” the average market size of other homes for the area. This of course will depend on the type of market that’s present in your community, if for example there are already several homes that have completed or are in the process of major additions, or have done total renovations, and this trend seems to be catching on within the area, then overbuilding might not be as big a concern. This is where proper due diligence, can make or break a return on “additions” as an investment into your property
If you are thinking of “adding space” in the form of a major addition to your home, this might also be the best time to think about other needed renovations, such as maybe updating your kitchen or bathrooms all at the same time as a major addition. The main reason is cost efficiency of having all the trades and crews in at the same time, plus you get the messy part all over with all at the same time!
You need to know what kinds of permits will be needed before any major addition can even be contemplated. In most cases a major addition will require a Development permit (DP) before you can even apply for an actual building permit. And in some case a DP can be turned down, meaning the approving authorities may NOT allow you to add onto your home the way you want to. Before thinking about adding onto your home, you need to check with local planning authorities, or engage someone like Landen Design Build to investigate your options for you, and find out what may be involved and how much it will cost to get the proper approvals in place for a major addition.
Furthermore, you need to prepare yourself for a large upfront delay in being able to start a major home addition, as the DP and BP process can take several months, to overcome, in some cases 6-8 months can be eaten up just getting permits in place!
We do not sell or share your information or use your details for marketing purposes
There are MANY issues that may need to be addressed before you even consider a major addition to your home, the first being an initial feasibility assessment, to see if you dream addition is even possible.
At Landen Design-Build we offer a no charge initial feasibility assessment that will include a detailed report of just how feasible your addition request would be both from a planning authority approval point of view and from a structural review point of view. In this no charge report we will look at the existing “set-back requirements” of front yard setbacks, rear yard setbacks, overall lot coverage, and “height restrictions”.
It should be noted that a good renovation Architectural Designer should be able to give you a rough idea of what is possible from your RPR (Real Property Report) or from an original site plan that was used for the original home build permit application, this before you go through the whole process of detailed design work.
The very first question that needs to be answered is where do you find a good renovation designer? At Landen Design we specialize in custom homes, additions, and renovations, providing state-of-the-art 3-D CAD rendering and planning services that will not only show you what is possible but will also meet or exceed all Development Permit and Building Permit Requirements when completed.
Ask about how you can apply for our no charge 30 hours of preliminary architectural design service.
Call 403-619-4734
When considering an addition to your home, it is important to take the time to do proper due diligence and some research.
First off you need to find out from the local planning authorities what is possible, in some cases you may not be allowed to add onto your home the way you may be thinking about.
There are many restrictions to allowable encroachment into the front yard, rear yard and side yard set-backs, overall height restrictions, plus in some case community association restrictions.
Sometimes an addition may infringe on these setbacks, but “might” still be doable with a relaxation application. Some things may seem feasible from a building permit point of view, but may not be allowable from a Development Permit or community association point of view, and the only way to know for sure, is to first find out what is doable from the planning authorities.
You can meet up with planning authorities yourself to get an initial feel for your home addition project, and in this meeting you should have ready a few rough sketches of what you are planning for, plus you will need the full legal description of the home you want to add to, including the Lot#, Block#, and Plan#. Along with a copy of your RPR (Real estate Property Report).
Alternately you could look at engaging someone like Landen Design-Build to do this initial investigation for you, as the planning authorities can tend to talk in “planning lingo” that many normal people don’t understand, or know the ropes and tricks on how to get around or deal with certain planning restrictions.
The first planning step is to figure out what kind of room or rooms you would want to add to your existing home, and where you plan to add these extra rooms, such as adding outward, or going up over top of the existing home. Engaging someone like Landen Design-Build can help you through this initial planning process, and create a preliminary plan / design that match your lifestyle and meet your new home addition design needs.
Next, you’ll want to figure out just how much actual sq. ft. space you really need for the new room or rooms you plan to add, and what you plan on putting into each room. You should also keep in mind what effect the size and specification of each room will have with the overall cost of your project, so it’s important to also have somewhat of a rough understanding of how much money you are willing to spend before starting any work on designing your home addition plans.
One way to help set this budget and the design process is to call on the experts at Landen Design Build. Where we offer a complementary site assessment of your existing home, and provided you with detailed no charge report of the feasibility of getting your addition done. Plus we offer up to 30 hours of complementary CAD architectural planning (Some conditions apply). Where we are happy help you consider your options and help you set a realistic budget for your home addition.
Call today, and let’s get started on your home additions Calgary project.
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