Most of us are fortunate enough to have a place to call home. Regardless of form, all homes serve to at least provide shelter for ourselves and possibly our loved ones. Often, throughout the course of our lives, we feel the need for more space. Children may be born. Grown children may be coming back home. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles might be joining us. New life partners may have found their way to us. Day to day working life may have become more centered around the home, demanding something more than the dining room table for an office.
In this era of abruptly-raised and stubbornly high interest rates, the option of selling that starter house (letting go of that now fantastic looking interest rate) and buying a larger home (at a terrifyingly high interest rate) is not a viable option for many people. In the effort to "hang on and expand" we are seeing many people come to our design build remodel team looking for opportunities to turn a house they have long planned to sell "someday" into their forever house.
Quite often the options for expanding and renovating an existing home, especially in Portland, can feel loaded with constraints, and even feel initially like a handful of hacks that one needs to choose from "Well I guess we could put the primary suite downstairs...." It doesn't need to feel like this. Remembering a few key points early on in the process can turn a tough option into a fantastic process of self expression and expansion.
Recommendations as you start to convert, expand, and renovate with a design build remodel contractor in Portland, Oregon:
Embrace the process: Make the choice to renovate vs. buy new and own it. Don't carry on in a funk lamenting the lost opportunity of the simple move to another, larger place.
Define needs before spaces: It's easy to start imagining a bedroom here, or a bathroom squeezed in there. Before considering any kind of spatial planning, take some time to carefully define your needs. Ask yourself "what is this house currently not doing for us." Do your best to leave definitions of space out of conversation and focus on your why. "We need another bedroom and bath" should be replaced by "Grandma is coming to live with us and needs her own space for the foreseeable future". These types of descriptions of need are what you will want to communicate to the experts.
Consult experts: Don't discredit the work of professional remodel contractors who have had years, or even decades of experience tackling the intricacies of design/ build renovations. Talk with as many different individuals as you can. Show them your needs. Analyze their approach to the potential transformation of your home. Consider their values. Consider their initial ideas, even if, at first pass, they seem wildly out of the box.
Consider a design/ build approach: Design/ build contractors exceedingly capable in helping you realize the vision of your home renovation. Renovations are tricky in that it can be impossible to know what you can afford without proper plans being drawn and it can also be hard to justify investing in a set of proper plans, not knowing if you can afford the scope.
Design/build contractors can offer you the benefits of being both designer and builder from the very inception of a project, sparing you costly unexpected turns and plan changes.
We specialize in attic and basement renovations, additions, accessory dwellings, saunas, and more:
