You have an epiphany: Instead of selling your home and uprooting your family, you decide to put the money you had in savings for a new house toward upgrading the one you currently live in. Genius!
After getting the rest of the family onboard with your idea, you settle down at the kitchen table and start to leaf through your phone book looking for the right contractor. Once you have settled on a few companies that look like they have the experience to do the job right, you make your first phone call. Of course, the contractor on the receiving end says that he would be happy to take on your project. Then, he asks what you are looking to do — an alteration or an addition?
Stumped? Don’t be. When it comes to remodeling your home, the more you know going into the project, the better off you will be. As Ferdinand Steyer, the owner of Mountain Works LLC, a home contracting company in Connecticut explains, a few differences take your project from being an alteration to an addition.
- Alteration: An alteration includes anything that is done internally to the home. It is not about knocking down any walls or changing the size of the room, says Steyer. Instead, it involves gutting the existing room and rebuilding it. This can include tearing out flooring, removing tile and taking out closets. Example: When altering your home’s master bathroom, you decide to go all out: You remove the existing floor, tiles, tub, sink, cabinets and toilet so that the room looks like a shell of its former self. Then you decide that you would prefer a standing shower rather than a tub, and double sinks instead of just a communal one. The ideas are endless when it comes to alterations, says Steyer. By the end, it is possible that your new bathroom will bear no resemblance with the bathroom that occupied the space a few weeks earlier.
- Addition: As opposed to just working internally, an addition involves adding or moving of walls to expand a space, or creating an entirely new room onto your home. The process of a home addition can either be lateral (building upwards to add another story to your home) or horizontally (adding rooms onto already existing levels). Example: You currently live in a two-bedroom home. You and your spouse occupy the master bedroom while your two children share the second. As your children grow older, the small bedroom can no longer accommodate them both. Instead of looking for a new three-bedroom home, you decide to add a third room to the space above the garage. This involves adding new walls, flooring and ceiling as well as new roofing and siding so that the addition looks uniform with the rest of the home.
Whether you are hoping to revamp a room currently in your home, or build an additional room that doesn’t currently exist, know the lingo to guarantee that your home becomes the masterpiece you envision.
