Custom home additions tend to call for a good bit of planning. If you're starting a custom project design for an addition, these three issues will likely factor into your efforts.
Establishing a Purpose
Before you put in the work of expanding your house, it's important to establish a purpose for the project. This goes beyond simply wanting more elbow room.
Someone might expand one part of the house, for example, so they can remodel a different section. You might do this if you want to add a half-bath downstairs. You could do an addition for the living room and then claim some of the previous space for the new bathroom.
The purpose of the expansion doesn't have to be anything too complicated. Maybe you just think the kitchen is too small. The important thing is that you have a clear purpose for a custom project design.
Changing the House's Footprint
Another big planning issue is deciding whether you'll want to change your home's footprint. The footprint is the outline of the house established by its foundation. If you expand the footprint, many jurisdictions require you to file paperwork with the county property registry. Also, you'll have to put in the work to expand the foundation to support the addition.
There are sometimes ways to avoid expanding the footprint. You might do the expansion into an existing area with a cement base, such as a patio, garage, or porch. Bear in mind, though, that the base has to be solid enough to do the job and meet local building codes.
Visual Continuity
Most folks doing custom home additions don't want to fully remodel their places. That means they'll need to achieve some degree of visual continuity with the existing structure. For example, you'll probably want the exterior to match the rest of the house. This can be a little tricky if the other sections of the house are showing signs of age or if the materials involved in the original construction are no longer available.
You will encounter similar aesthetic concerns inside the house. This can be less of an issue if you're adding a whole new room, but you'll still likely want the interior to have a similar style to the neighboring rooms. If you're expanding a room, you'll need to think about hiding the seams from the addition. In many cases, it will be easier to repaint the whole room and redo the trim to ensure everything will match.
For more information, contact a company like Dog Star Construction.
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