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Adding a second story to our ranch

14 years ago

I know there have been other threads but I haven't seen anything lately. We have seen that some companies are putting modular additions up and we are interested in that as well as stick-built.

Has anyone put a second story on their ranch? If so, pictures? Has anyone gone ahead and put a modular second story on? We have a basic ranch. 924 sq. feet (not including basement).

We've been told that going up is alot cheaper than out because of the cost of foundation. I'm now curious about the modular additions because we have a growing family with a 1 year old and it's a lot of chaos.

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Comments (7)

User
14 years ago
The foundation has to be designed for the intended load----which most likely did not include the weight of any kind of second floor.

First step is to find an architect to find out if adding is even possible.

The cost of reenforcing the existing foundation is probably going to be much greater than adding enough foundation for an addition to the first floor.
jeniferkey
14 years ago
We added a second story to our small farm house. Stick-built. We weren't interested in modular, so don't know about that.

We did have an inspector/structural person approve our current foundation. Until we found someone who'd look, we thought we'd pour a new foundation to support new walls around the current ones. It's not easy to find someone who will confirm your foundation is sound enough for a second floor.

We originally went out with part of our addition. If you have the space, I'm not sure that the extra foundation is really that much more. We were going for a certain look.

Tearing off the roof was a bit startling. Still, I've seen it done on a number of homes in our area.
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How do you feel about painted brick? You could do brick on the addition and paint the whole house the same color. You would probably want to have someone come out and check your current brick for suitability; I don't know if the type of brick makes a difference or not when considering painting it. My house was a one story brick house and the POs added a second floor. They did brick for the addition and painted it all white; you wouldn't know by looking at it that the second story was an addition. OTOH: Some people want a house to look as though it's been added to over time; if this is the case for you, my suggestion probably wouldn't be what you want.
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Doesn't look so great to me - the second floor add on is way out of scale with the 1st floor, and you've totally lost the horizontal effect of ranch and prairie style (close relative of the ranch). I think you want the remodeling forum as you seem intent on transforming it into a more generic contemporary type of thing. This forum is more about keeping original design elements and identity. Which is not to say a historic house can't be changed, or altered, or added on to - just that it should keep its original design elements as much as possible.
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Rocky, for the time being we will use our architect's plans. Our plans are not currently final but I think that our house will be quite close to our current plans. So it will be a custom home and the modular builder's price reflects that. Our plans have a lot of features that I would want (considering the $$'s that we are spending) -- such as a formal entry area, and it's hard for us to find stock plans that offer all this anyway. That said, I would highly recommend going through stock plans first to check if they have what you are looking for, and if needed, make minimal modifications to them. That would save design costs for you. Just my 2c. And shop, shop shop! We had one of the contractors who told us that painting alone may cost 40K and considering that it "shows", we should get a good quality painter, even though it's expensive. I agree in principle, but I found someone who has excellent workmanship and he has quoted 25K for exact same job. Prices do vary a lot. Lastly, regarding your comment about the area supporting the route: yes our area supports either route price-wise, and we will get our money back. Our main problem is not recouping the costs, but it's more like raising so much cash without touching other important investments such as retirement etc.
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I like it. I don't think the dining room is too far away. It is only steps through the living room. I like a pretty, formal dining room. This plan gives you the separation for a formal dining room along with the openness of the living room to the kitchen that you want. Consider a seating island in the kitchen for casual eating. With regard to the doors that bother you, it looks like you could put a hallway wall between the living room and bathroom/bedroom that will separate those rooms from the living room. It will close off the dining room a little. It's a trade off.
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worthy
14 years ago
Now, that's thoroughly eccentric. I love it!

Here is a link that might be useful: Drafty Manor
kaidan
Original Author
14 years ago
Whoa! That was not what I was expecting to see as an "After" picture at all. Congrats! It's great.

We were told that our foundation would hold the weight but that was a builder. We'll see, we do have options but we love our yard. The modular idea though keeps me interested as many people in our area are quickly putting up big modular homes.
sierraeast
14 years ago
I would get a consult from a licensed structural engineer. Not that your builder's opinion isn't valid, just that getting a written okay from a s.e. would keep the building/planning dept. happy assuming you'll need to permit for this project.

Awesome, Jeniferkey! Was the design influenced by the original octagon of the original house? Nicely done!
jeniferkey
14 years ago
sierraeast-It started with DH saying that he wanted a turret. It was all just a joke, until a builder friend said that he could build round. Once it was started, we couldn't turn back.

The tower took a couple of years, then we took a few years off, and just last year finished the rest of the exterior.
We still have the interior to work on. I like that I always have projects going.
drywall_diy_guy
14 years ago
Wow Jeniferkey you guys built yourself a castle! How cool!

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