Never ever cost effective.. Buy the house that fits what you need it to be from the beginning. It will always be the cheapest option. Even if you think it won’t, it will.

Why do you have to add space?

Cape Cod style house: Note the second floor is located beneath the roof over the first floor. There's no second floor front or rear walls. This is a 3-bay house.

Colonial house: Note that there are second floor walls on all elevations and an attic above the second floor.. In addition, this is a 5-bay house.

What's the cost to transform a Cape Cod into a Colonial house? I think somewhere around $1,000,000 should do it, not including architectural, engineering fees and permits. Also doesn't include living costs while you find another place to live for a year or so.

Find a local Architect or Design/Build firm to generate ideas and plans. Then pricing.

"how best to expand the living space"

Too many unknown factors to comment. Hire a local architect.

My friend's parents bought a single story ranch for 500k. His mom wants to significantly alter and expand it. Estimate for all that is 300k. (Or maybe I got the numbers reversed - either way, absurd). My friend is trying to convince them to just sell it and get a house that actually fits their needs instead of go through a ridiculous remodel process. I was like, why didn't they just buy an 700-800k house from the get go and skip the remodel?

Another note, when my husband and I were house shopping, there were several houses we looked at that had been extended and/or very significantly altered. In all these cases, the addition made the house LESS attractive to us for a couple reasons: the addition was often poorly done and did not work well with the rest of the house, or the house had been made into something it wasn't meant to be, which made it feel awkward and sometimes uncomfortable.

Unlike others, I bought a small house on 20 acres many years ago, knowing I was going to enlarge the house. The property was exactly what I was looking for, in a great area, and there was plenty of room to add on. And I looked at plenty of properties before I found this one. I ended up adding 1300 square feet, doubling the size of the house. Sold the property 2 years ago, new buyers love the remodeling/addition. Probably helps that home in WNY are reasonably priced.

Expansion of a modest home really only makes sense in areas in which the real estate market supports it. Generally it would be in highly desirable metropolitan area - West Side of Los Angeles for example where modest homes for working class people were built in what are now neighborhoods that are sought after by the upper class and wealthy.

Essentially people buy modest homes in these areas as essentially tear downs but will sometimes keep the original footprint because it enables them to grandfather in certain stuff. But often the whole home is just demolished.

If your home is in a "normal" neighborhood, it would be unlikely to make economic sense but you really would need to do due diligence by consulting real estate brokers in your specific area and then determining costs to get what you want and comparing them to a home you could buy for that price - and of course factor in the major emotional stress of a major remodel.

We bought a 1 1/2 story house 34 years ago. Only half of that 1/2 story was finished; other half was unfinished attic. We knew we would need to expand that house and we had one weekend in which to find a home. We bought the neighborhood.

It was not that huge a deal to put a full dormer on the back of the house. Thirty-four years ago, it cost about $70,000 to do this. We had paid $127,500 for the house, and it was one of the smallest houses in the neighborhood.

But before we began, I called a realtor who was very knowledgable about this neighborhood and lived a block away. She looked at the appraisal, and the house and told me that I could not over-build the neighborhood, but could over-build the house. She said I had to add square footage or I would be doing just that. By adding that full dormer and finishing the unfinished attic (huge BR and ensuite bath), I did just that.

If I were to sell this house today, I could probably get about $550,000 for it - it's still the smallest on the block and other houses had had huge additions and are now going for close to $1 million. My house is lacking the open concept kitchen/family room that buyers want today. And the only way to get this, is to build out in back. Unfortunately, the lot slops considerably and the kitchen is a flight of stairs above the ground beneath. Building "up in the air" is twice the cost of building on a flat surface. Yes, they could put on such an addition and it might cost them between $200,000 to 300,000 depending on whether they wanted a fireplace and window costs, but the house would still only have 3 BRs, and the one on the first floor can never be a MBR. They would be over-building the house. So, it will not be an easy house to sell.

I certainly have no regrets about buying it or doing the various remodeling jobs we've done over the years. I've lived her for 34 years and it's served me well. I have a modest mortgage (refinanced to redo the kitchen). I will still make a bit of money on the house, but that was never the intent - it was to make it a house that served my family well, and it has. I certainly won't lose money - mortgage is far to low to ever be "underwater", and I could care less what I've spent in the past - had to live somewhere.

Agree with other contributors here. Hire an architect/home designer. Pictures would be helpful here.

Helen is correct... it 100% depends on where you are. Sophie's advice is only true for low cost of living areas or areas with a lot of housing inventory.

Doing additions piece meal sounds like a sure way to be miserable. I would much rather live in a tiny cramped/broken house than one that is continually under construction.

Talk to some local contractors/architects/realtors to figure out the cost of what you would like to do and if it makes sense in your market. Then if it does make sense, wait until you can afford to do it all at once. We lived without an oven for 4.5 years while saving up/working on plans. Also during the whole planning process we looked at houses that went up for sale in our area to make sure that it wouldn't be better/cheaper to just move. It wasn't...

You mentioned you love the house... wondering if what you love would be lost in a major expansion. If it's lot and location then planning an appropriate addition makes sense IF the neighborhood supports it and your family can tolerate the upheaval.

robinimorris, we did do multiple remodeling projects over the years, but it was far from constant. They did not involve moving out, and still allowed use of the kitchen (only lost use of my sink for 3 days when I re-did my kitchen!). The biggest one was due to a broken pipe on the 2nd floor that flooded much of the 1st floor. We went ahead and made changes while the repairs were being made and the insurance company was paying to store furniture. We would probably never have made those changes if the 1st floor of the house were not already in chaos (we still had the kitchen!).

If I had the money, there are still a couple of improvements I would make!

Glad it worked for you Anglophilia... 3 days is really fast for remodeling anything! Nothing happens that fast where we live.

I think it depends on the extent of your project and your tolerance for construction. We wound up tearing down half the house, so there was no way we could stay. Originally, for budget reasons, we weren't going to touch the upstairs or the laundry room for a few more years, but then we realized since we needed all new HVAC, plumbing, and floor, and electrical, we might as well gut everything and make all the changes we want. Having to get permits again and have all the workers come back would be way more expensive and aggravating in the long run.

Even so, there are were a few more improvements we could have made as well (larger master bedroom), but we do want to retire someday :)

The OP sounds like she wants a lot of major changes, that will impact roof lines, plumbing, electrical etc... which IMO is the kind of project where it would be better/easier to just to do it all at once.

It went fast because my KD allowed me to outsource some of the work. For instance, I hired someone to remove the plaster soffit and put in a new ceiling and paint it. I only had to remove things on the counter and they cleaned it every night and brought my microwave and toaster oven back in. I still could cook!

Then I hired my usual guy to come in and fix some of the wiring problems we had found in that soffit. He also added a pot light at the same time.

Painter came next and did walls/woodwork/bay window. He came back after uppers were removed and did a bit of touch-up - dry by next morning.

When we finally had a demo/install date, handman came the Fri before and removed all the under cabinet lighting, which was saved for re-use.

He returned after the cabinets were in, installed the undercounter lighting and one plug mold strip.

I made all the arrangements for the plumber to come and disconnect sink/faucet/disposal/dishwasher, and then return the morning after my countertops/sink were put back (reused) and hook back up everything. I had also arranged for countertops to be removed and then reinstalled the evening the cabinet installation was completed - he was leaving town for a week, thus the evening reinstall.

Tile came later.

The only appliance moved was the refrigerator- moving ice maker line was easy as I have a basement.

Believe me, I had this thing organized with the precision of the Invasion of Normandy! Ironically, they arrived for the demo on 6 June!

i was very lucky my kitchen guy (company owner) was willing to work with me. He knew that at my age (then close to 73), I could not stand a 3week job with no kitchen.

For an *extensive* addition of space, ask yourself if you will have a more valuable house at the end of a remodel or not. Will you recoup the expense? Will you live through a year-plus of bit by bit dismantling and replacement?

We bought a 1950's ranch for location. We did a teardown and have a marketable all-of-one-piece completely new house on the old foundation. What would I change? I'd have ripped out the foundation too!