Your deck is at the moment not part of the sq footage for the lot so you will need to find out exactly what is allowed where you live, You will need an architect so find out what size of addition you can add then get an architect to design something that looks like it has always been there IMO nothing worse than addition that looks like it was just thrown up with no thought

You need to consider property values in your immediate neighborhood as well. You don't want to end up as the most expensive house as the lower-valued houses will drag down your property value. Go to zillow and do a quick search of estimated home values in your area. Consider trends also - what is the rate of increase in the past few years?

@Patricia Colwell Consulting Thanks for your reply, I'd assume unless my specific lot has a designation that doesn't allow for an addition for whatever reason, that it would be fine. A lot of other houses on the street with similar sized lots and houses have additions.

@RTHawk Thanks for your reply, the addition would put it on par with the houses on the street. Mine is definitely the smallest right now. Most of the rest have at least done a garage addition and a lot have added to the house as well.

It's in a well sought after town on Lake Michigan so I'm pretty confident things will continue to trend up or at least plateau for a while.

You can easily check what you can do size-wise yourself. Your city/zoning will have lot offset requirements and coverage requirements (impermeable SF/total SF of lot). You don't need an architect to find this information. You may not have enough width to do a garage, depending on what the offsets are.

Regarding your idea: you will end up with a weird roof that is high in front & back and low in the middle. If you don't take off the roof over your kitchen you will end up draining all of it to your addition walls, which is obviously not good. If you do take off your roof, you are looking at $$$. I also think 2 sets of stairs is a bad idea, as they take up a ton of space and your home isn't that large.

It looks like the best way to add on to your home is off to the side, not off the back.

@anj_p thanks!

Suppose I add to the other side, what would you recommend without it being awkward off the kitchen? We’d still want to accomplish a master suite and dining area. I only have about 20ft on that side until i reach the neighbors property. So probably only 15ft to work with. Whereas the side that I had the garage on has 25ft from my house to the next property.

@3onthetree Thank you! That is very interesting and I think incorporates some ideas I ran through before I decided on the drawing I did.

I do have some questions though: for drawing A - I'm assuming the red is your addition, with the dining room being off of my current kitchen and I'm also assuming you're putting the master suite above that correct? How would you adjust the stairs so you could get to the bedroom? I apologize if my drawing isn't the greatest to show where things are. I also have considered a detached garage but it would mean adjusting the location of my driveway, I was hoping to keep the garage attached because Michigan winters are not fabulous.

For drawing B - I'm not sure what you had here, I'm assuming the red is a garage addition? Is it similar to what I had, with a master suite above it? I'm not sure how my stairs that are on the other side of the house would access it.

I really appreciate your time though! I'm not an architect so, sorry if my questions are obvious.

Consider living in the home with a baby or child. the master bedroom is two staircases and several rooms away from the baby.

There are many iterations that can happen, what I was trying to illustrate is that the roofs have to be able to meet or coincide in a way that makes sense. You may decide that a relocation of the 1st floor bath, laundry, or kitchen should happen to utilize a better addition placement. A hard design point would be the stair - which IMO should only have one to access the upstairs, not 2 to separate areas - so either a completely new stair (closing off the old) or rework the existing 2 rooms upstairs so that stair can be used to access an addition.

@auntthelma that's a good point! We'd probably wait to do this project until our child is toddler age. Or we'd have the child's bedroom be in the first floor bedroom. The house isn't very large so I wouldn't think going downstairs would be an issue. There's also baby cams, definitely something to consider though.

@3onthetree Gotcha! Thanks, could combine your two drawings?

That way this achieves a master suite, one staircase, garage and dining area. Thoughts? Or would that look like crap...?

Check city setback requirements, second floor addition requirements, how many cars per garage, driveway cuts and hardscape coverage, and so on. It's probably all online. There's no point in getting a fine plan all worked up with no way to build it. Sketch Up is a great tool to explore ideas before contacting local architects.

City hall may also have copies of old plans and permits. It can be fascinating to see what's been done in the last 100 years to your own house.