Building Up vs Building Out with Room Additions: What to Consider When Adding a Room to Your House (2024)

FAQs

Is it cheaper to add on out or up? ›

In general, building up tends to be less costly than building out. When you factor in things like digging and pouring a new foundation, building out typically carries a higher price tag (though this isn't always true, and certainly depends on the size of the room and its purpose).

Building up is always the least expensive option for increasing your home's square-footage because it requires less material and labor. For example, if you have 1,000 sq. feet on the main level and want to add 1,000 sq. feet as a second floor, all you have to do is add more wood and framing labor.

The Framing

A home's framing is its skeleton. Because so much material and skilled labor is required, this is an incredibly expensive part of building a home. While framing may not be as expensive as the foundation or lot, it is typically more costly than other items.

Kitchen remodels: Kitchens are easily one of the most important rooms in a home, so it's no surprise people value a smart, modernized space, says Fisher. On average, kitchen remodels lead to a 72 percent ROI. The average cost of a kitchen remodel is between $25,000 and $40,000.

More often than not, adding a bedroom increases the value of a home for when you sell. For every bedroom that's added to a home, expect the price of a home to go up between $30,000 and $50,000.

The short answer is yes — home additions typically add value to your home. However, you must also keep the cost in mind. The Remodeling 2021 Cost vs.

What is a bump out addition? ›

A bump-out addition expands a room but falls short of the size, complexity or cost of a home addition. Most bump-outs expand a room by another two or three feet but some can be as large as a room.

Building out is often more expensive since a new foundation will need to be laid, and there may be structural issues to address to make sure the roofline and walls remain strong with the new addition. Talk with your contractor about which option works best for the property and budget.

Unless you're building up or bumping out, every addition requires some sort of masonry foundation dug down below the frost line so it won't get pushed around by freezing temperatures.

A room addition or bump out is a single room structure built onto the side of a house. It is usually meant for a single function, such as a bedroom or bathroom. Sometimes it only expands the size of a single room in the existing house. A room addition or house bump out is an addition scaled far down.

Finishing a basem*nt, attic, or garage is one of the more inexpensive ways to add a room to your home as you won't need to add a foundation, roof, or structural elements.

The highest cost you'll experience in the building budget for your home is when it's time to frame. This is the skeleton of your home, and it takes a lot of lumber to build the bones. When purchasing high quality lumber, estimates can cost $25,000 for a modest size home to more than $80,000 and up for larger homes.

The Kitchen. This likely comes as no surprise, but kitchens are by far one of the most expensive rooms to remodel in a home. Not only is plumbing and electrical work quite a doozy, but installing, painting or building new cabinets or kitchen islands is incredibly labor intensive and expensive.

What hurts property value can be things specific to your house — such as deferred maintenance issues, outdated kitchens and bathrooms, or a noisy location — or by outside factors such as your local real estate market or the state of the overall economy.

The kitchen and the master bathroom. Buyers tend to show more interest in these rooms than any other in a home.

Which room is a selling point of a home? ›

If you're a seller with a tight timeline (and budget), you'll want to focus on these rooms first. The rooms buyers most closely inspect (and judge) in a house are the kitchen and master bath. These are the interior spaces where the most value can be added during a sale, so they need to look their best.

The answer to an addition problem is called the sum.

“Homes with more bathrooms sell for more money,” says Aaron Hendon, a real estate agent with Christine & Company in Seattle. “It will also appeal to more buyers. Buyers with kids will almost always want more than one bath.”

One of the most cost-effective ways to add value with an additional bedroom is to divide a bonus room. This means that you'll be using finished space and installing a non-load-bearing wall, perhaps additional electricity, a closet, and a window.

How much value does a finished bonus room add? If the idea of additional living space wasn't incentive enough, a finished bonus room is also a worthwhile investment that can add between $10,000 and $30,000 to the value of your home.

By finishing your basem*nt and adding a bathroom, it will no longer feel like a basem*nt. Instead, it will feel like a comfortable living space where you and your family can relax and spend quality time. Adding a bathroom to your basem*nt makes it livable space, which increases the overall market value of your home.

To add a 12 by 12 foot room to a house, you might typically pay between $11,520 and $28,800 (£8,386 and £20,964) to build out.

How much does it cost to build a 12x16 building? ›

How Much Will It Cost to Build a 12×16 Shed? A DIY build of a 12×16 shed can cost anywhere from $2,000 -$4,000 depending upon how many materials and tools you already have on hand.

A bump out is an extra space that is far smaller than a full addition. It may be the same size as a single room, but sometimes it does not match the size of a room addition.

If your house's finished floor is above the grade of the landscape outside, your contractor can build a bump out of up to about 3 feet deep, and as long as 10 to 12 feet. That may be enough to add an eating area to your kitchen or a separate tub and shower to your master bathroom.

A micro-addition can be added where your existing structure allows, and can be as small as just a couple of feet. This means you can make any room feel bigger without having to do any foundation work, saving you time and money.

Home additions cost an average of $80 to $200 per square foot. So, you can expect to pay between $40,000 and $100,000 to add a 500-square-foot room to your home.

But adding or expanding a room isn't much easier than moving. You have contractors to hire, important decisions to make and a lot of money to spend. If you decide to add a room to your home, it will soon be filled with dust, plaster, nails and other construction materials.

Depth of Footings

Footings should extend to a minimum depth of 12 inches below previously undisturbed soil. Footings also must extend at least 12 inches below the frost line (the depth to which the ground freezes in winter) or must be frost-protected.

Add a New Internal Wall

The simplest and most affordable way to add another bedroom to your home is to construct a new internal wall to divide an existing room. This can be a real help if you have a large existing bedroom, and is perfect for creating two smaller rooms for children.

Without a stable foundation, the Big Bad Wolf would have blown all of them down. A house built on an unstable foundation can have a number of serious problems, including cracks in drywall, sticking and poorly operating doors and windows, sloping floors, water intrusion, and moisture damage such as wood rot and mold.

In general, building up tends to be less costly than building out. When you factor in things like digging and pouring a new foundation, building out typically carries a higher price tag (though this isn't always true, and certainly depends on the size of the room and its purpose).

What kind of rooms to put in a house? ›

According to HomeAdvisor.com, the average cost of building an additional room onto your house runs $80 – $200 per square foot. The discrepancy depends on the layout, your home's style and the materials used.

The short answer is yes — home additions typically add value to your home. However, you must also keep the cost in mind. The Remodeling 2021 Cost vs.

While a home addition requires you to live in a construction zone (to some extent) until it's completed, it's much less stressful and less expensive than going through the process of looking for a home, packing your belongings, selling your house and moving to a new neighborhood.

As small as 2 feet: Bump outs may extend as far as 10 to 15 feet from the house, but they can also be tiny pop-outs that are no deeper than 2 feet. Cantilevers: Small bump outs often are cantilevered (unsupported by posts) from the house. This is typically limited to about 2 feet in depth.

Add 400 Square Feet to a House

addition averages $40,000 to $120,000. Additions of this size are large enough for multi-use spaces. This could mean a kitchen and dining room or a master bedroom with an attached bathroom.

Supply and demand. The basic law of supply and demand have a major effect on the housing market. Simply put, as the housing supply decreases or as demand rises, creating an inventory shortage, home values go up. A real estate inventory shortage means that there are fewer sellers than there are buyers.

Appraisal

They'll look at square footage and bedroom counts. For appraisers, it's not the number of bedrooms that matters, but the amount of square footage that impacts a home's value. While this does vary from market to market, typically a bedroom addition adds appraisal value only if it increases the square footage.

Finishing a basem*nt, attic, or garage is one of the more inexpensive ways to add a room to your home as you won't need to add a foundation, roof, or structural elements.

What is the difference between build up and build out? ›

In building out, the vast majority of the additions will involve increasing the building's footprint at the ground level (horizontally). In building up, additions can happen without necessarily increasing the footprint. You can add one or more stories to your establishment (vertically).

Great High Cost-Value Ratio

It is typically cheaper to build an addition than to buy or build a new home that equals the space of your existing house plus an addition. At the very least, the closing costs involved with selling your old house and buying the new house would push this option over the top.

What is a bump-out addition? Typically, a bump-out addition is cantilevered off the existing foundation, similar to a balcony, making foundation work unnecessary. And, a micro-addition doesn't need to be tied into the existing roofline. Both of these qualities save both time and money, while still adding extra space.

What Is a Bump-Out Addition? A bump-out is a minor addition to a house that increases its total square footage but doesn't reach the scale of a full addition with multiple rooms. A bump-out can be as small as two or three feet that push out the side of the house, or as large as a single room.

For a home that is 1,500 square feet, that means your costs can be anywhere from $225,000 to $450,000 in most areas, with the possibility of going all the way to $900,000. If you have an attic, turning that into a liveable second floor is a much more affordable option.

So if a bedroom is 12 feet wide and 12 feet long, it is 144 square feet total (12 x 12 = 144 sqft). Basically, the square footage of the room is the total area or size of the space.

How much does it cost to add 1000 square feet to a house? Based on a cost of $80 and $200 per square foot (£627 and £1,567 per square metre), you can expect to pay between $80,000 and $200,000 (£58,244 and £145,589) to add 1000 square feet to a house.