Make Your Home Work For You – Unique ways to find more space in your home

Making your home work for your needs can be easier than it sounds! Many homes have space to work with, but the potential is unrealized. With a bit of creativity, we are sure that we can help you find more space in your home. There are almost always areas in your home we can flip to make your home work better for you!

Find more space in your home for…

When you think of adding more space to your home, a few key areas come to mind. Bathrooms, bedrooms, and rec rooms are the top three areas we get the most requests for when we meet with clients whose homes don’t quite fit their needs. No matter the type of space you want to add, we can likely find it in the most unlikely areas!

Bathrooms

When adding a bathroom to your home, placement is critical. Attempting to add a bathroom far away from plumbing can add a hefty price tag to your remodel, but there are tricks to keeping your budget under wraps.

We often see bathroom additions in basements, garages, or close to a laundry room or an existing bathroom. Adding a bathroom near the laundry room or an existing bathroom will provide the lowest cost option due to the proximity of existing plumbing. However, adding a bathroom in another location is definitely possible!

The most popular option is removing space from the garage or basement to add a bathroom to your home. These locations tend to have the most room to give and don’t result in a loss of current living space.

Bedrooms

With bedrooms, you can get a bit creative! We have added bedrooms to attics, basements, and garages and taken underutilized living space and transformed it.

Say you have an unused home office or a dining room, and you desperately need an additional bedroom. These two locations are the perfect place to put one! You will need to add a closet and ensure that the room meets all of the necessary building codes to call it an actual bedroom, but this tends to be relatively easy to accomplish with current offices and dining rooms.

Attics are another location where adding a bedroom to your home can make a lot of sense. If you have a full attic, as we tend to see in older homes, with appropriate ceiling height, we can easily transition it to a bedroom. Depending on the build and accessibility of your attic, additional costs may be necessary to make it livable. Still, it is a great option when considering the lack of space inside the existing living area of the home.

Basements are a no-brainer when it comes to adding a bedroom! Whether you have a finished or unfinished basement, adding a bedroom is an easy way to add much-needed space to your home. Suppose you are working with an unfinished basement. There will be additional steps to finish the basement to create a habitable area before adding a bedroom, but this can be rolled into a full basement remodel to add even more space to your home!

We don’t see as many garage additions/transformations here at FBC Remodel, but it is entirely possible to transition your garage from an unlivable to a livable space!

Rec Rooms

Rec rooms are similar to bedrooms and they can be used for anything! Rec rooms can house a home theater, a gym,  a playroom, a craft room, and more. You can add one in basically all of the same places as a bedroom, but they have fewer restrictions since the goal isn’t to have a proper “bedroom.” When adding a rec room to your home, you don’t have to worry about any building codes required to add a bedroom. Fewer codes mean more options and allow for more flexibility regarding location and layout.

Space Planning is key

There are so many options when looking to find more space in your home! Your best bet to get the most creative solutions is working with a team of professionals specializing in space planning. Space planning will be vital in getting the most out of your remodel because you will work with someone who can find the most creative and functional ways to transform your home.

Appropriate space planning includes a thorough understanding of how your space is used day in and day out. Many considerations fall into space planning, such as who uses the area, what it is currently used for, what you’d like it to be used for, furniture or accessories you want in the space, etc. It is a deep dive into how you live in your home and how you want to live in it in the future.

Find the right partner for your remodel

When determining who to trust for your remodeling partner, meet with a few and choose the one that feels right to you. You don’t want to be left second-guessing yourself after your project starts! Vetting a remodeling partner should always start with research and a consultation with the potential partner. When you go into your consultation, be prepared with a list of questions and topics to discuss so that nothing gets missed and your questions get answered. Being prepared for your consult may be the most critical part of finding the right partner for the job!

If you have questions about finding space in your home or remodeling in general, we are here to help! Contact us to learn more, or start your remodel with us today.