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| In any home addition, be it an in-law addition, home
office, four seasons room or a nice kitchen expansion the goal is to get
the project done as quickly as possible. Unlike building a new home an
addition is being done where you live now so good planning and the right
building system need to work hand in hand to complete the project
quickly. In many cases, not all, but many taking a modular approach to
your home addition may be a wise move. An in-law
apartment, home office, second story addition etc. all satisfy a
specific need. Here we will focus on the in-law living addition because
of the high interest in that product.
In the planning stages of a home addition for an
in-law apartment one of the first things to do is determine the long
term needs. Even the most active adult that would love a second floor
addition would be less than happy should a wheelchair be required down
the road. The whole idea of an in-law apartment is to keep families
together without sacrificing independence. Listing the long term needs
will make the addition an asset rather than a temporary solution.
Once you have determined what to build the next step
is to decide where to build it. Larger building lots make it possible to
do a first floor addition. Smaller lots may require first floor space be
re-assigned to accommodate an in-law apartment. This is where modular
construction provides some interesting possibilities. Using a ranch
style home as an example lets say the building lot and zoning will not
permit expanding the homes foot print for an in-law apartment. The
solution here would be to add a second story to the ranch style home
making it a colonial. The bedrooms from the first floor of the ranch
home can then be converted to the in-law apartment with space left over
for a nice dining room, larger kitchen or media room. For each design
challenge there is a solution. The trick is to pick the best solution.
Once you have a plan of attack in place for you in-law
addition it is time to visit the building inspector. Do this before you
spend money on plans and designs or ask builders to quote the project.
The local building inspector will be a great asset to you and be able to
identify right away what will and will not work with your concept.
Zoning will play a big part in what is possible as will hookups for
water and sewer. These are all things that you will need to know up
front so that there are no surprises down the road.
Once you have the building inspectors notes in hand
you are ready to make any necessary adjustments and then start taking to
a builder to nail down the costs and build a budget for your project.
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Design Consultants
| When building an in-law
addition or apartment the design process is much more
involved than when building an entire new home. The existing
structure and the addition need to blend both the old
construction and the new to create a home that not only
works well but looks good too. The best home addition
projects are those that do not look like additions but
rather look like the entire home was designed as one custom build.
Things to consider in the design
process are matching window styles and placement, roof line
transitions, access to the main house and the addition and
finally plumbing connections. The electrical connections are
easy but plumbing drains to tie into the existing system
take some careful planning. |
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DESIGN TIP: Senior Living
Solutions.
A great reference resource to
start your in law apartment planning is Brette McWhorter
Sember's
book on Elder Cottage Housing Opportunities or ECHO for
short. Brette's book will give you some good insight on both
the over all planning and specific elements of the design
build process. To View ECHO on line viist Google Books at:
IN LAW APARTMENTS |
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There is an old saying in the field of construction. 'Fail to plan, plan to
fail'. Simple, but so accurate. Every year people start building projects before
having a game plan in place. The projects take too long, the results are not
what the customer wanted and the costs go right off the scale requiring special
items or features to be dropped or replaced to keep the home within the home
building budget parameters.
Each home building project is different be it a luxury home in Greenwich
Connecticut, a Mountain Chalet in Aspen Colorado, or a spacious log cabin along
the coast of Maine. No matter how different the projects the principles are the
same and start with a simple chain of events.
There are a lot of construction schedule templates in the market place and it
makes good sense to look at the various software offerings to find one you like
but to start the process simply use an Excel spread sheet approach. This is a
great platform for listing, scheduling and keeping track of tasks to do and
tasks completed. The building process always starts with the ground to be built
on. So start there. Is a survey required, do trees need to be cut, is a wetlands
permit required. As Construction Managers these are the things that are on
everyone one of our 'Scope of Work' schedules. Your local builder may be
responsible for these tasks or you may wish the DIY approach and spend some time
but save money by doing them yourself. No matter who is ding the work though it
should be on your list to keep track of the progress. Having a list and a
schedule always seems to work well even when things are going wrong because you
know the issues. It is when there is a new task or surprise that you tend to get
upset with the builder, the process and your decision to build a new home.
| Imagine building the home here without a plan of
attack. People come to builders every day with a picture from the
newspaper or a magazine and want to know the price. In the home shown
here there are so many questions to be answered the builder at best
would come up with a wild guess, generally high to cover himself and
hope it falls within your home building budget. You see the obvious
problem here. The price you get could be far too low or far too
high. This example is like going to a car dealer and asking how much a
red car costs. Not enough information here for an accurate price guess
but enough to know you are in the market for a car. Building a new home
successfully requires a lot of detailed information. |
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When searching for a builder it is always a
good idea, during the audition phase of your search, to ask the builder
about design capabilities "in house", see some examples of what they do,
and of course see how much they charge for the service. Early on when
CAD systems were used for system built homes all of us with the
capability were drawing plans for free for anyone that asked.
Unfortunately this level of leisure time was replaced by longer working
days to stay even with the competition. Most builders though have
the ability will still work up the first plan for free to make sure you
and he are talking about the same house but after that expect to see a
charge for this service. This charge in almost all cases is deducted
from the house price when you order so it is not money lost unless you
decide not to build the home. |
| Great Home plans take into account the
energy needs and costs to provide the client with a home built to the
high performance standards required today to meet the energy challenges
we face. The Green Energy Movement has long been a part of the
System Built industry long before it became a movement. Building
hundreds and thousands of homes on the scale that modular home factories
do is a great thing for eco-friendly home building. The factory setting
makes it far easier to be a Green Builder because of the controlled
building process. One of the best things a factory can do to improve
their bottom line is eliminate waste. The building process, building
plans and construction method are all designed to make the highest and
best use of every product and material that goes into the construction
of a new home. |
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The
Modular Home Center In-law
apartments and home additions
