Consider reinventing your house. Remodeling includes all sorts of home improvement projects. Projects that change the characteristics of your house and make it suit your new life situation are more than a simple sprucing up and remodeling. I call this “reinventing” your house. Why not consider reinventing your family house into your retirement house?

Our families and our lives evolve. When you are raising your children, an upstairs master bedroom makes sense. You want to be near the kids in case they need you during the night. But when they leave home and you are getting older, those stairs don’t look as easy to climb several times a day. And you know that as more years go by, there is some chance that you may not be able to climb them at all. Many homes can be reinvented from a family house to a retirement house with the addition of a first floor master bedroom suite. It might take some clever planning and confirmation that there is enough room on your property to do it. An architect can help you with that.  But reinventing means you won’t have to spend all that money on commissions and moving costs. Instead, that money can go directly toward the cozy first floor master bedroom suite with the fancy new bathroom you’ve dreamed of.

Staying where you are and reinventing your house has many other benefits. If you like where you currently live, if you have great neighbors, familiar stores, doctors, and restaurants nearby, if your church is around the corner, and you live close to many of the things you like, why start over? Change your house into your retirement house and let those upstairs bedrooms simply become guest rooms for the children and grandchildren.

Remodeling  and reinventing can cause some turmoil. But selling a house, buying a new one, and moving can be an even bigger hassle. And with the construction industry being slow, construction costs are down.

Spend some time thinking of what your present house could be. Ask an architect for some ideas. He or she might see things you don’t. You might surprise yourself with the possibilities.

If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

It can cost a lot of money to sell a house and move. Realtor fees and moving expenses can cost as much as a total kitchen makeover. So why not save the real estate commissions and moving expenses which, once spent, are gone and can never be recovered. Instead, put the money into something you can use and enjoy, something tangible like a great new kitchen or a luxurious master bathroom.

Many people were saving money in their retirement accounts to use to build or buy their home retirement. Their current homes were good for raising children, but now that the children are gone, the upstairs master bedroom and other accessibility considerations make the house inappropriate for aging occupants. But retirement accounts have taken big hits. That loss of their assets combined with the decline in value of their current house has many people finding themselves unable to afford the retirement house they dreamed of. So instead of retiring to the house of their dreams, more and more people are remodeling their current houses to be the kind of house that works for them.

This can be done by adding a ground floor master bedroom suite to permit single level living, altering and enhancing master baths to allow handicapped access and added convenience, making alterations to remove other steps within the house or at the doors, and updating the house to include the conveniences and amenities people now want and need. Formal dining rooms can be converted into home offices or libraries and studies. Screened porches, patios, and outdoor kitchens can be added to change a home from a growing family type of house to a leisure living home. Even face-lift makeovers to change the appearance of the house and re-landscaping to reduce yard maintenance can be done.

There are other intangible benefits to remodeling beyond the financial and lifestyle benefits. Staying in the neighborhood where your doctors, banks, favorite stores, churches, clubs, and friends are can make staying put a lot more gratifying than pulling up stakes and relocating. If you don’t think your present house is good for your golden years, think again. You might have the nucleus of a wonderful leisure living house right beneath your feet.

If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

With the state of the economy right now, remodeling makes a lot of sense. It’s hard to sell a house, but with construction costs way down, remodeling your current house into your dream house is a great idea. Plus you don’t have to pay real estate commissions or moving costs. That money can help buy you your new kitchen cabinets and countertops or the screened porch you’ve been wanting.

It is more than a little distressing to read some of the comments posted here about architects. It’s distressing because the reputation we, as a profession, have for being aloof, out of touch, and costly has unfortunately been earned by the actions of our most egotistical fellow professionals. But we are not all like that. There are many good architects who specialize in residential design and want to shed that image of being costly and only for large, expensive projects. I’m working on a deck addition right now, for example. Don’t be dissuaded from using an architect because of the stereotype of the Frank Lloyd Wright persona. If you interview several architects, particularly those from small offices, I’ll bet you’ll find one who is eager to design a great house or addition for you (and not for himself or herself). He will save you more than his fees in the long run by controlling the entire process, solving problems and seeing the big picture. He’ll also be able to create a house that fits you like your favorite pair of slippers and looks great.

Architects approach their work from a design viewpoint. It’s important to us to have a house feel right, be properly proportioned, and deliver the most for the money to your lifestyle and happiness. Builders approach projects from a more utilitarian viewpoint. After all, they are builders and not designers. They build things. Architects have to know about both.

One word of caution about residential designers, while many are quite good, they have no legal liability for their mistakes. Architects are licensed by the State in which they practice after rigorous training and examination. They can not hide their professional liabilities behind a corporation the way a designer can. So if you want a legal responsibility behind the work, hire a real, licensed architect. You can read how that responsibility came to be because of a molasses explosion, of all things, in my book, Designing Your Perfect House.

The last time I checked, there were 137 comments posted on this article. They range from architect lovers to architect haters. You might find some enjoyable reading there. I hope that many architects read them and take the criticisms to heart. There is always room for improvement in any profession. But one thing I can say, most architects work hard to do a good job for their clients.

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If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

Can you compare an addition of a simple room with no plumbing or special features with the cost of a kitchen addition full of cabinets, countertops, plumbing fixtures, and appliances? The kitchen addition could cost twice what the simple addition would cost based on the “cost per square foot.” What if an addition was to be built on flat land, clad in vinyl siding, and contained only a couple of simple windows. It would be much less expensive than an addition built on sloping land, clad in fieldstone, full of high-end windows, and included a soaring ceiling. Comparing the cost of these two projects would be like comparing apples and oranges.

While the “cost per square foot” method is a flawed way of estimating construction costs, it is the only tool we have for preliminary estimating. Builders do not use this method for calculating the actual cost of your project. In my book, Designing Your Perfect House, I discuss this in some detail. Here is a short excerpt:

“The “cost per square foot formula” is not, I repeat, not the method your builder will use to establish the actual cost of your house. These figures are determined after the builder has calculated every piece of the building, how many pieces of plywood, how many bricks, etc., added up those costs, added in the labor costs, added in his overhead and profit, and come up with a bottom line number. Then, most builders will go back and divide their calculated price by the number of square feet to see what the “cost per square foot” is. They can then compare this number with similar numbers for recent projects they have built to see where you stand relative to those.”

If you want to get a rough idea of what your addition will cost, you have to find comparables, just like appraisers do when they are placing a value on a house. Talk to some local builders and ask them to show you similar projects they have built. Look for projects that match your scope, level of detail, and the types of things that were included. Pay attention to the way the addition attaches to the existing house. The more the existing house has to be altered to accept the addition, the more the project will cost. Once you find some comparable projects and you learn what they cost per square foot, you can apply that cost to your project with some modest level of confidence. Be sure to add something for inflation in costs from the time the other project was built until now. Costs never seem to go down so there is no reason to think your project will cost less. Although in these economic times, you can find some pretty good deals in construction.

Asking several local builders will give you a rough idea of what to expect in terms of cost for your addition. Even though their answers will vary, their opinions can help guide you. But keep in mind that until you actually design your addition, draw up good construction plans and select the items to be included, no one will be able to give you a precise cost for your project.

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If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.