DH and I are expecting a baby in Aug (surprise!) and have to add a room on quick! Our house is almost twenty years old, colonial with an attached garage. We are thinking of adding a bedroom over the garage. How much do you think this will cost us???

TIA!

While I am not versed enough in home building trades there are several questions I have in order for anyone to be able to give you an educated guess.

1) What size of room did you have in mind? The full size of you garage? How big is you garage?

2) What is the roof like on your garage?

3) What style of roof is on your house that the new room would have to match.

4) And most important, are you willing to do some of the work yourself? This would be painting the inside etc.

One other item that would add to the cost. Most cities require a “Fire Wall” between the garage and the occupied space. The wall between your house and garage may be OK at this time but would have to up-graded durring constuction

Welcome to the pool. I am sure someone will be able to help you.

You are going to need a contractor, an architect, get to know your building inspector, pay licenses and fees, plus materials plus labor, again depending on where you are and who you hire the cost can run from some to a lot. Therefore I would suggest contacting a local general contractor and talk with him/her.

I can tell you this much, a second floor addition costs more than a first floor addition – if you have to raise the roof, go through the roof it always tends to cost more than extending a roof. If the garage is not presently structurally designed for a second story, you may find yourself going from a reengineering of load bearing walls, from the footer/foundation on up – or just a rebuild of the garage itself. If you live in California an addition costs around three times more than if you live in Idaho – heck, for an addition in the central valley of California you can get a rural 3 bedroom house in Idaho

Way to many variables to through out a number for you. sorry.

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. The size of the room in mind is about 150 sq ft., That is not the full size of the garage. The roof on the garage (and the whole house) is a little over half-life, but we were looking into getting a new one put on anyway. We are definitely willing to do some of the work...especially the painting if needed and if it will cost us less!

If you are just adding a small addition then there is no need to go to an architect. Most builders offer design-build services that can suit your needs. Especially for a room over the garage.

The thing I usually suggest is for people to contact builders and get them to come by and look at the job. Get their prices and the information on the project from them. Be honest and tell them that you are considering doing some of the work yourself. Then discuss the options with them. You will likely find that there are certain parts of the job that you shouldn't take on yourself. You can then get down to the nitty gritty and make some decisions.

Most builders are not hard sellers so you're not going to feel all that much pressure. The building industry is pretty well acquainted with the reality of jobs - if the money isn't there then there's no reason to get involved.

You will have to go to your building department but you should meet with builders first and get an idea of your costs before starting anything. Unfortunately sometimes it works better to move to a new house that has what you need rather than spending the money on an addition.

A good measure of how much to spend - take the Current value of your home and divide by the square footage of existing home. Take that value and multiply by 150 sf (the addition). This is the amount that you shouldn't exceed for your additional space. So let's say your house is worth 200,000 and you have 2000 sf. That means that your house is $100 per sf. So for a 150 sf addition, you shouldn't spend more than $15,000 (adjust up or down accordingly).

It all depends on the framing that you have and windows whether $15,000 is realistic for a room above a garage.

And please remember to put a carbon monoxide detector in any room above a garage.