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The holidays are a fun, festive time full of friends, family, cooking, shopping, entertaining, and oh, let’s face it — stress. Along with the holiday cheer comes quite a bit of stress.
A lot of this stress arrives in the form of family members who travel long distances to visit. While you don’t want the grandparents or Great Aunt Edna to be relegated to staying at a hotel, it can also be trying to have an additional person or two jostling for bedroom and bathroom space in the midst of all the holiday hustle-bustle.
Another common holiday conundrum? A cramped kitchen and dining space. While that tiny single oven, compact countertop, and bistro table might serve your family well during the rest of the year, you’ve noticed that holidays and special events leave people leaning awkwardly while balancing plates as you try to shuffle dishes around with military precision.
It sounds like it may be time for a home addition. Not sure where to start? Here are a few ideas to make next year’s holidays less hectic.
Go Vertical With Your Garage
Your garage is just sitting there waiting for a second-story addition. Because your garage already has a foundation in place, building a guest suite above the garage is a great way to maximize your home’s already-existing footprint. In addition to providing extra space, building a garage apartment will give everyone quite a bit more privacy during lengthy guest visits. If you’re still trying to get the image of Great Uncle Ernie wandering the house in his bath towel out of your brain, an over-the-garage guest suite sounds like just the ticket!
Build Out the Basement
Another already-existing space that you may not have considered for a new home addition? Your basement! Sure, you’ll need to go through those dusty boxes and get rid of a few things, but imagine the relief during Christmas week when your mother is able to retire downstairs to her private basement suite and your oldest daughter doesn’t have to give up the privacy of her bedroom!
Although your basement is already part of the house, you’ll need to take care when remodeling it to ensure that the end result is dry, warm, and comfortable for your guests. With tehe proper drainage, leak repair, insulation, flooring, and good lighting, there’s no reason that a basement bedroom addition can’t feel as though it’s always been a part of your house.
Expand Out or Up for Your New Home Addition
If your home doesn’t have a garage or basement that provides a potential for a ready-made addition, you may need to consider adding on to your home’s footprint by building out or creating a second-floor addition. Bumping things out works well if you need to add on to your kitchen, for example, or if you have a convenient area where an extra bedroom would seem natural.
A couple things to consider when deciding between these two choices are if there are any building restrictions in your area that would prevent you from adding a second story or bumping out your square footage.
Something else to think about? Budgeting for your new home addition. Bringing in a professional contractor to discuss your plans will help give you a realistic view of what each type of expansion will cost. They’ll also be able to give you an idea of how long the project will take so that you can plan to have it completed before the next round of holiday sharing and caring descends upon your household.
We all love having our families around during the holidays. Even so, allowing them to have their own space lets us love them just a little bit more!
