There are too many variables for anyone here to give you even a ballpark. Things like the current state of the existing foundation, tying into existing walls and roof lines if they meet current codes, soils/compaction tests to see if the new foundations will be allowed,etc. Property/ setbacks are a concern as well.

Your best bet is to get estimates from contractors in your area. Even at that, those estimates will also be ballpark figures because of the unforeseen/hidden unknowns when opening up an older home.

A renovation contractor(s) in your area might be your best bet as they are generally more familiar w/ vintage homes assuming you have a vintage house.

I know some people who have added to an existing structure, and the current setbacks, rooflines etc do fit into current codes. For a single story addition of 500 sqft, I do not see a problem getting plans approved. Problems begin when you want to go upward in my city.

Anyways, thanks for all the replies. I would still appreciate guesstimates if anyone wishes to venture. Like I said, I want to only find out if this type of addition can be accomplished in

I also live close to San Francisco area. I am in the middle of the remodeling project.

Here is what we are doing...
1. Add 80 square feet to the kitchen. Gut the kitchen to the stud. New
cabinets/countertop/backsplash/appliances/hardwood floor.
2. Add 120 square feet to the family room. Gut the family room to the stud. New Hardwood floor. Add three patio doors.
3. Update electrical & plumbing.
4. New roof
5. New heating system
6. raise ceiling to 9 feet in kichen and family room.

As you can see, my project is not as extensive as yours. The cost for my project is about $220,000. This is the cheapest quote I got (out of four good general contractors).
My original plan was to gut the house to the stud (2200 square feet) and add additional 1000 square feet. By the time we are done, it would be a brand new house. The quote we got for that was between $700,000 to $900,000 (average material, not high end). Due to the high cost, we decided against it. It is just too expensive to do the project, so we cut back to just kitchen & family room.

What city do you live in ? I am in SF, and if you remodel over a certain percentage of the house (I wanna say 30% but would have to check), you have to do complete seismic upgrade. Might not be a problem for you, but that would have been $$$ for my 1900 Victorian cottage.

Also, are you on slab foundation, crawlspace, full basement ? How accessible is your plumbing and electrical ? How accessible is your property ? What brand windows do you want? French doors can be very expensive (my Andersen outswingers were approx $2.4k per set for 5-footers). They add up quick.

Are you planning to pull permits ? Are you SURE you know your zoning regs ? Do your plans need to go through neighbourhood review ? All these things can add 6 months or more to the project, and money of course.

Based on my experience (1100 sq ft, new deck, tearout and replace kitchen, tearout and replace bathroom, new halfbath, one bedroom down to the studs, rewire and replumb, new roof, refinish floors in ~500sq ft), you are looking at significantly over $300k, with medium-level finish, nothing custom. Labor is very expensive here, so if you're not doing it yourself, it will be an expensive project.

Remodeling will always be much more expensive than building new. Sad but true :-) I don't want to sound negative, but I had a plan similar to yours when I bought my home, and have learned many hard and expensive lessons in the last couple years.

Good luck !

Thanks a lot, gowelch and flatcoat. That was certainly helpful. If there are others who have similar work going in the area, please please share your info with me.

If you have had a breakdown of costs, what is the most expensive portion? (e.g ripping out the existing structure, or stuccoing, or windows etc) .

We are on the peninsula. We have a '50s midcentury modern, which has a slab foundation. Not sure if that is a good news or a bad news. And yes, I would save money on the kitchen but would want better windows.

Yes, everything will be done with permits. The plans will need to go through city review.

In reality, my wish list was based on an assumption that remodeling would save us some money. However, we might even consider teardown if it comes out CHEAPER than the remodel (Still cannot understand why it would be, but so be it). Everything in the house is of average quality; nothing spectacular.

I have a friend who lives in my city, who did an addition couple of years back, by ripping the existing 1300sqft house to the studs, and adding an extra 1000sqft or so, in the second story. She claims they paid about 350K. Now that I hear all these numbers, it beats me how she did it. This was something she proactively volunteered to me, thus I know it was not with a motive to be secretive in response to a nosey question!!

Anyways, thanks again for all the replies. If anyone has more info to share, I would be happy to listen; this is useful info to me!

How long ago is "a couple of years back" ?

"a couple of years back" - a lot of materials were much cheaper than they are now. With the war and hurricane Katrina, the cost of many materials has increased significantly. Things like plywood, OSB, roofing materials. Also copper. The pros would be able to tell you more about how costs have increased over the past couple years. I wouldn't be surprised if her 350k job would now cost 500k or more.

Remodeling is almost always more expensive than starting new. A lot of time and attention has to be taken to tie into old. Making new windows fit into old openings, or adjusting openings to take them. Leveling. Stuff like that.

Why don't you break it down into smaller chunks, and price out some of the materials for those chunks ? Things like windows, doors, kitchen cabinetry, appliances, lighting, plumbing fixtures. Go visit the big box stores and find out how much these items would run. Get some free quotes for the roofing chunk, and maybe even for the plumbing and electrical (just to give you a ballpark for those subcontractor amounts).

It sounds like you already have an idea for what you want to do, have you been working with an architect or designer ? They should have a rough (*very* rough) idea of $/sq ft remodeling costs for your area.

Thanks. In my neighborhood, there are several people who are remodelling, and we have collected great references but simply haven't gone to an architect yet, because we want to agree on what needs to be done. Without specific idea of numbers, we keep rethinking the scope of work.

I think that your idea of getting an idea of subcontracting etc is good one. I have a great neighborhood, lots of folks who are giving us all kinds of pointers, but I have a huge block for asking how much their remodel/addition cost? I am scared that it might be the end of friendship! Thus my dilemma.

An architect's estimate would be out of whack but you are willing to rely on the opinions of strangers on an internet forum?

I admit cost estimating is not a strength of most architects since they don't have any reason to keep up with the marketplace and have to rely on RS Means and other cost data, but who on this forum would even have that level of knowledge for your area?

You should be asking if anyone here is a professional construction cost estimator familiar with your area. Otherwise, you will probably just justify the price you have already set like most homeowners tend to do and get a surprise when you bid the job.

Figuring the job out before hiring an architect is a common mistake that most homeowners make. Who would be better to help you with your program/scope than someone who has been doing it for a living for 20 or more years?

I can give you a pretty good ballpark since I'm in the middle of something relatively similar and in the Bay Area. The difference with mine is that we're adding a second story, but we deliberately added it over the new construction to take advantage of the new foundation. Also, to respond to some other's comments about an architect's estimate, we hired an architect with 20 years experience doing this type of work and in our area, he created a number of scenarios with various price points and we chose one in our budget. After the drawings were complete, we had three contractors bid it and it was about 22% over our budget. WAY out of whack. I don't trust architects or cost estimators in todays' construction market, things change and there are too many variables. I'd see if you can find a contractor who can give you some ideas and ballpark estimates.

Now back to your original question, off the top of my head and with my current experience I'd say you're looking at $250,000 to $300,000. I know that sounds insane, but ours is in the mid $500ks and we're doing mid-range everything too, nothing fancy, nothing high-end. The Bay Area is just a very expensive place.

I'm an architect. I have 2 comments:

I can not stay current on prices because my last job bid was 6 months ago - I suggest my clients talk to a contractor as soon as we have preliminary drawings. I hate to do drawings for work no one will build.

When a new client calls, I ask why they need an architect. If they know what they want, perhaps they only need a competent contractor - I can recommend some good ones. If they say they need help, I ask about why and what. The best clients tell me that 'so-and-so'(usually a contractor I work with, sometimes a previous client) said they'd better call me.
Architects solve problems, organize, and consider options and realities, including budgets, help negotiate the maze of permitting. Sometimes what I do best is speak 'contractor', 'Town code', and English. Designing graceful, aesthetically pleasing spaces is something I often do when no one is noticing.

Thanks, jegr. I do not mean to criticize architects, nor am I hoping to avoid seeing one.

However, when I see an architect, I know his/her estimate will be one of the data points. As a homeowner, I am not comfortable going to someone and saying "ok take 300K and get me something". Would anyone, without knowing what can they get, albeit approximately?

Caligirl_cottage, thanks a million for your post. Your post is exactly what I was looking for. If I can get a few responses from current bay area residents who have recently remodeled, I think I would be a lot more clear on what budget/scale of job I am looking into.

Thanks to all, again! The responses so far have been VERY useful to me.

I would love to hear more!!

I would seriously consider moving. Or a teardown. But, first talk with a realtor to see if the upgrades you are doing are even appropriate for your neighborhood. Yes, if you're going to stay there for the next 30 years, a 900K (you'lll be lucky to see the bottom side of that figure by the time the seismic upgrades and impact studies are done.) remodel doesn't mean that much when amoritized over that 30 years. But, it sure means a heck of a lot if a job transfer suddenly has to happen or ill health strikes and you are in the position of having to sell something you never though you would. Never say never.

Just another two cents from me. We went through the whole decision making process of whether to move and put the remodel money into a "finished" home and the ones I'd like were above what we thought we'd spend on an addition plus the value of our home at the time. For that reason, we chose to move ahead with the addition. HOWEVER, we've now spent probably 30-35% more than our original budget so in hindsight, we probably would have been better off selling, buying something done and not going through the struggle and stress of an addition. In the end, we'll have a really nice house, and hopefully not sink ourselves financially, but I wish we'd known the extent of the cost before we had gone so far along in the process that we couldn't turn back.

Just something to keep in mind.

People with no construction experience say they don't trust professional architects and cost estimators but offer opinions about the cost of a project they know little about "off the top of their heads". The internet has opened a whole new avenue for the practice of fantasy and self delusion.

Wow, mightyanvil, that's a mighty compliment. By the way, I'm not sure where you got the idea I have "no construction experience", because in fact I've worked in the construction field for the last 20 years developing single family, multi-family projects of all kinds. In all that time, I've never met an architect or a cost estimator who could come within 10% of a cost, and most are much farther off. It's not a slam against architects or cost estimators, they aren't building every day, and familiar with the variables like a contractor should be. And by the way, the project description matched mine almost verbatim (except mine is larger) and I'm in the middle of my project, and I live in the Bay Area, so I think I can at least provide a reasonable ballpark for them. So I might not have the perfect answer, but I'm certainly not delusional.

Thanks, live_wire_oak, and thanks, caligirl.

Mightanvil, I am happy to get input from Caligirl. I appreciate you trying to show me the other perspective of looking at what I am doing, but for now, I am comfortable running this discussion with caligirl and others like her (past/future contributors).

Live_wire_oak, thanks :-) I saw similar posts from you on other threads. It is great that you are making us aware that this option exists. For us though, both practically, and emotionally, remodel is better option (I will elaborate another time on this).

Caligirl, thanks a lot once again. I appreciate your help. If you are happy with your architect and/or contractor, I would be happy to get their info from you (offline).

You're welcome homey-bird and I think you're on the Peninsula if I recall, so my architect and contractor won't do you any good. One thing I can also suggest is to look at recent additions, remodels in your area, find out which ones you like, even talk to the owners and get referrals from them. Our architect was really key in getting our project through the Planning Dept. process and that can often be one of the biggest hurdles.

Take care.

I have been trying to remember when I developed such an aversion to guessing about the cost of other people's projects and it finally occurred to me that it was while designing buildings for IBM in the late 70's up in Essex Junction, VT.

When the Real Estate Division down in White Plains, NY would propose a change (which happened about once a week) I would have to provide a cost estimate before it was given to the contractor for pricing. If the contractor's price came in more than 5% over or under my estimate, I had to give IBM a written explanation justifying the discrepancy. This went on for several years.

Then they decided to stop construction on a building while the frame was going up and after we had enclosed it and installed minimum services. They asked that it be redesigned for another use - programmers offices instead of computer and electrical labs. The change order cost estimate took a month but the discrepancy explanation took several months.

Since then I've not had much tolerance for guessing and expect others to offer convincing evidence to support their opinions. However, on internet forums I find that guessing has become a pastime, if not a sport, for many who say they have expertise in construction. From my experience, I have to believe that anyone who would offer such specious advice is a pretender. I may be wrong, but that is my opinion.

May I suggest that if people here really do have experience in design and construction, that they come over to the Building a House forum to help the homeowners there who have little or no experience and are in serious need of assistance.

Mightyanvil, I'm glad you have direct experience with the frustration and futility of trying to justify to someone else your opinion and experience on a given subject. Like you, I know what a complete waste of time these things can be. Fortunately, nobody pays me to generate memos or provide evidence that I'm not a pretender, and I don't come here for bitter cynicism.

I'm glad that you can empathize so that we can agree this discussion has reached it's limit.

Thanks again to everyone who answered my questions. As and when I do have my job going, I will hopefully be able to help out others by answering their questions to the best of my knowledge.

It appears that people who come to this Remodeling Forum get a lot of grief for posing completely justified questions.

The issue of how to determine a budget based on some idea of what something might cost BEFORE hiring an architect or kitchen designer or whatever is a huge one. The lack of any sensible way to do this is a plague on homeowners. And the solution is not necessarily to hire an overly expensive Design/Build firm.

I suggest that anybody trying to get answers to tough questions pose them in the Kitchens thread because at least people are nicer. Nice doesn't get you a budget that's realistic and it's no substitute for professional advice (like "hire a lawyer" and "have a written contract") but there are a lot of people who have learned from the school of hard knocks. And who want to be helpful.

The best advice to this OP is probably to go to SEVERAL contractors and get rough GUESSES prior to going to an architect who will roughly design something upon which a contractor can ESTIMATE the costs but my opinion right now is that those GUESSES and ESTIMATES may be utterly worthless and you can count on the ACTUAL BID to far exceed anything anybody was talking about. That's my grim view of the world this morning based on my experience to date.

Semms to me that has already been stated, you are just being nicer? Whatever!

All construction projects have the same dilemma: which comes first, the budget or the design? Actually, resolving this issue is a common part of architectural services.

An architect often helps a client put a program together and then provides a preliminary design so that a contractor or a cost estimator can offer a ballpark preliminary estimate along with suggestions for reducing the cost if that is appropriate. Then the architect modifies the design accordingly and gets another estimate. This often means changing the program so the owner should be a big part of this process. It also means finding estimators willing to provide repeated estimates. There are several ways to do this but I won't get off on that tangent. I have done this for hotels, dormitories, hospitals, office buildings, and home kitchen renovations.

Unfortunately, what often happens with home renovations is that an owner will somehow arrive at a budget based on a rough "wish list" program and then ask an architect to design to meet it. No owner should be surprised to find that their "wish list" exceeds their budget or that the architect did not insist that certain program elements be deleted. I call it the "too many good ideas syndrome". In my opinion, this approach is not a good one because it wastes time and money.

However, the drawback to hiring an architect first is that the architect might be uncomfortable signing on to the project without a full design contract knowing that some owners will accept the offer of a contractor to build from preliminary information to save money. The only person who has ever done this to me is my brother-in-law. Fortunately, I am able to choose my other clients more carefully. Ideally, an architect is hired for a preliminary programming and feasibility phase and a full design contract is signed later when the scope of the work is better defined.

fern4, it would be more accurate for you to say that people who come to this Remodeling Forum sometime receive responses that challenge the assumptions contained in their otherwise "completely justified questions". If such responses were taboo, the Forum wouldn't be very effective. To call such responses "grief" is a narrow-minded, ungrateful attitude, and unhelpful to everyone, in my opinion, because it drives away professional participants.

You can have your forum back now.

mightyanvil, I think you mistook what I was saying. I do think that people on any of these forums need to be educated and I am one of them. Some of the lessons we need to learn are not things we want to hear! It's very helpful to have professionals involved as well as owners and DIYselfers.

It's just that when you start out -- and maybe even later --you don't know what to do. There are numerous ways to go about starting and completing a project -- none of them ideal as far as I can see -- but they all put the homeowner in a position of having to seek information that is either difficult or literally impossible to find. But that information is key to making any decisions to hire anybody to move the project along. And, along the way there are very reputable people and very unreputable people you might ask for information and they may all be very "nice" thereby confusing the homeowner even more.

It's in that highly confusing context that people ask questions and when people on these forums are unpleasant it's simply not called for. I completely agree that (many) assumptions need to be challenged; I believe that sometimes the tone is unpleasant and the content lacking.

I also agree about what you're saying in your last post about the wish list and the architects not holding the line but nobody knows where the line will be until there's a bid on a specific set of drawings and that's when you see the unholy difference between an estimate and a bid.

fern4 I agree, the reason these forums are helpful to me are that they provide a broader perspective on questions that we all have. I'd like to say something simple, like ask your architect or your contractor or your attorney, but that's just not often the real world. My architect was great at certain things, cost estimating not being one of them. We were very flexible in terms of our wish list and I have a lot of experience in construction so I know how the process works for large projects at least. This is a different world where in my experience contractors are simply not willing to take the time to provide estimates on schematic designs, knowing that there is a high probability you'll bid it out later and someone else will get the job. To them, costing schematic designs, unless they're paid to do it, is a waste of their time.

In any event, I do appreciate all the hard-knocks real life experience help I get here and I know that it may not be professional advice, but I like to get my information from professionals as well as peers (other homeowners with a problem to solve).

I want to thank everyone here to helps in that way, as we all muddle through these projects.

I wanted to "third" what Fern/Caligirl said as well. As the original poster of this question, it was important for me to get responses from members such as Caligirl, flatcoat etc, as it was enlightening to hear from Mightyanvil.As a homeowner, it was comforting to know others' experiences in a similar market, for similar work.

I am a homeowner who dreams of a space, has been saving decent amout of money to achieve that dream, but am always anxious if reality would be very different...I think one will be able to appreciate why people come out and want to discuss with others who have been in *their* shoes, before getting input from "professionals" who are in *different* shoes. As a homeowner I simply cannot emphasize the importance of this exchange enough! While I appreciate knowledgeable folks pointing out the limitations of this process, I do not believe I deserve to be treated in a dismissive manner.

When a general contractor prices a project he/she is using a combination of actual bid prices from sub-contractors, actual cost records from previous jobs, and some guessing if some part of the work is highly unusual. This price will also include all of the different contractors mark-ups for their overhead & profit. It can never represent the true cost of the job but the contractor hopes it will be greater rather than less than that amount.

When an architect estimates the cost of a project he/she must use published industry cost data sources like RS Means with ballpark modification for the region, and some phone calls to material suppliers for price verification, and a wild guess for what the overhead costs and mark-ups of subcontractors and the general contractor will be even before they are selected. To do more than this would be cost prohibitive for the owner even if it were not beyond the expertise of the architect, which, of course, it is.

When an architect attempts to design to a preliminary construction cost budget there is no simple cost estimation procedure that can be used for guidance and intuition would be useless. The only effective cost control procedure would be to stop at several design stages and perform a cost analysis based on a decreasing number of assumptions with the last analysis occurring at the time of bidding when the architect would have as much design information as the bidders and would have a chance to come as close as possible to predicting their prices. Such a procedure is usually considered to be cost prohibitive by an owner for a residence and the final analysis would be pointless since the actual bids would soon be available.

So, to express disdain for discrepancies between actual bid prices from real contractors and the preliminary budget based on preliminary assumptions is disingenuous at best and, at worst terribly naive and disrespectful of the professional difficulty of such a task.

No architect can design to a budget without the owner paying for a cost control procedure that parallels the design process and even that could not be expected to be completely accurate unless the overhead costs and markups of the contractors was known, or if it were performed by a professional cost estimator familiar with residential construction, if such people even exist.

Your attitude is not unusual and I am sympathetic to it. Most of my residential clients express the same ideas and concerns and think they need to know the cost of a project before consulting an architect. This happened just last week and I had to explain that the design and contractor cost efforts should proceed on parallel tracks with some milestones for assessment and reevaluation along the way and that there was no point in walking contractors through the house before a preliminary drawing had been produced. Similarly, I have tried to tell you of a better, more cost effective way to proceed and why amateur advice will cause you to spin your wheels at a time you need some good traction to get the project started.

My advice, simply put, is that if you are willing to hire a professional designer you should let them do their job rather than trying to do it for them. If that is offensive to you, then letÂs agree to both be offended and I will promise to restrict my advice to my clients who, in addition to not being offended, actually pay me for my time.

Mightyanvil, no, I am not offended. I have appreciated your posts for the insight they offered me into how/why estimating process is complicated.

However, I sure wish the pros on this forum show a little more tolerance to the homeowners asking naive questions, and other helpful amateurs answering them based on their recent experiences.

Having said that, I have enjoyed reading through your posts on this and other threads. Thanks.