Home additions can’t be done on a whim; you need to understand fully why you’re adding a room, plan for it, arrange the finances, and make sure you have permits in place. The most common reason for homeowners to want to add another room, typically a guest room, library, or home office, is lack of space. You need more space, and sometimes that’s hard to achieve with open floor plans. Or you might have to add a guesthouse or mother-in-law suite. Whatever it may be, it’s an extensive and expensive process that requires serious planning.

Here’s what you should know before you get on with it.

Clear the Red Tape

There’s a lot of red tape involved with residential construction. The rules vary from state to state and city to city. If you’re in Round Rock, Texas, you’ll have to run your plans by the relevant government entities and your homeowners association (HOA) to get your permits before you break ground. That can be quite a drill because red tape is lengthy and tiring and may delay your timeline by a month or more. Just plan for it.

Once you go through the process, you might be asked to make changes to your plan to comply with local, environmental, and HOA rules and codes. Austin’s laws are especially complex and strict, so just be patient. If the zone you live in controls construction tightly, it might be hard to get the permit. Allow at least six months to get through this process. A professional home renovation contractor in Round Rock can handle all of this for you as part of their services.

Plan Your Finances

The first thing to note about home additions is why you need them. If it’s for the comfort or luxury of you and your family, then it’s reasonable to splurge as long as you can afford it. If it’s so that you can upsell your property in the market, make sure you do a cost-benefit analysis before you begin. Not all renovations will give you an equal return on investment, even in the crazy Austin real estate market. The expected returns on investment must exceed the costs incurred in the home renovation project. Make sure you account for your time and effort to bring the plan to action when you’re estimating the costs.

Living Arrangements

This is one aspect of the entire project that homeowners often miss or ignore. If you’re living in the house where you’re adding a room, you may need alternate accommodations while the project is underway. Depending on the size of your project, you may need to move out during just part of the project. If you can stand a few weeks of the constant noise and dust that come with living on a construction site, stick around. But some people—especially those who work from home—can’t do this.

Some larger room additions like a living room or kitchen expansion may require that you move out because there’s just too much noise and debris and the HVAC needs to be turned off. Make sure you sort this out before the construction starts because moving out midway can be difficult.

Reach out to the home remodeling experts at Freccia Group in Round Rock, Texas, to put your room addition plans into action. We have in place a design and construction team that has done residential renovation projects in Round Rock as well as across the Central Texas area. Call us at (512) 410-1342 to talk about your home remodeling project and how we can make it come true.