I need to shave off some sq footage. Here are my thoughts: Smaller Mbath/closet and shaving 1' down the left side MB and Child's room. Can anyone help me with tightening up the side entry to include mud room, pantry and possibly create a booth or window seat area with dining table. We are limited on adding to the right any further (driveway). The existing structure is a log home. I'm trying to do from top to bottom: living room, kitchen an dining or just kitchen, dining then the vaulted living room (existing home). Thank you for any suggestions and assistance. Here is a link that might be useful: Existing structure

Of course, it could, but you would be saving nothing of the existing roof. The framing would be all new, and you would in all likelihood need to move out for a while. Casey

What you show are bents of rafters connected by gusset plates so that wind loads are transferred to the floor plate through bending stresses in the rafters. A truss would use chords in triangular configurations so the wind forces would be transferred to the floor plate through tension and compression forces in the members. The bents are less stable and rely greatly on the size of the rafters so deleting one of the bents can put unacceptable bending stress on the rafters of the adjacent bents. At each side of the dormer the bents should probably be doubled and a horizontal header installed between them or vertical posts could be installed to take the loads directly to the floor if it is strong enough. I doubt this structure would be allowed today so altering it may have created a problem that could be expensive to repair. You should ask the owners to hire an engineer and repair the damage to the structure and provide evidence that the repair is acceptable to the local building department before you buy the house. The records of previous permits should be available for your review at the building department. This post was edited by Renovator8 on Sun, Jul 20, 14 at 23:44

Before my (late) DH and I embarked on a large renovation/addition, we did the math to compare what the addition would approximately cost (x), then added that cost to the approx. value of our home (y), and priced out homes in our area for sale at approx. x+y. For us it was worth doing the addition rather than buying a different house, even though ours ended up over $200/sqf, probably closer to $300/sqf. For comparison homes in this area are about $1.5+M for new builds; homes for teardown between $400=600k in very rough approximations. Some things to factor in: the cost of a rental when you move out during construction, including the cost of switching utilities to the rental then back (it's not so much the cost as it is the hassle. For example, keeping my same email address with Comcast required almost an act of divine intervention, not to mention about 20 phone calls.) Also count on scope creep. We were victims of our own enthusiasm and I can't tell you how many times we said, "While we're at it, we might as well do...." That's how we ended up going from the kids wanting a dog and me saying "no dog until I get a mudroom", to a 1000+ sqf addition with gutted kitchen and 4 gutted bathrooms, plus a new garage and a new roof. World's most expensive dog. (But Hendrix is worth it. :) ) Finally, there are compromises you will make that no one has to make with a new build from scratch, and there will be surprises. (Like when they cut an opening for my new office window and found a vent pipe no one knew was there. Or when they broke the sewer line while digging the new foundation.) I guess this is a long way of advising you to have a good contingency budget. For us it was totally worth it and I'm so glad we did the addition. And you have something in your favor I didn't know about at the time... this forum! I often wonder whether my layout and kitchen would be different if I knew about this forum and the kitchens forum when we did our work.