Home Improvement Projects That Pay Off - Forbes
Instead of spending loads of money and months of work moving walls and building a home addition, grab a paintbrush. Painting is the least ...
Additions and major remodeling projects
A good rule of thumb when searching for high ROI values is to avoid big-ticket reconstruction projects. The cost of home additions or major remodels is almost never worth it in dollars in the end. With ROIs averaging around 45% for a master suite addition, save the project for your forever home. <anchor>Additions and major remodeling projects</anchor> are excellent for improving the comfort and utility of a house but aren’t great at producing monetary returns.
Popular Types Of House Additions – Forbes Home
Select Region

- advisor_usaUnited States

- advisor_ukUnited Kingdom

- advisor_deGermany

- advisor_inIndia

- advisor_auAustralia

- advisor_itItaly

- advisor_caCanada

Moving Services

- Moving Company Reviews

- Guides

Home Warranty

- Home Warranty Reviews

Solar

- Solar Company Reviews

Pest Control

- Pest Control Reviews

Home Security

- Home Security Reviews

Internet

- Internet Reviews & Comparisons

Other Categories

- Plumbing

- HVAC

- Lawn Care

- Windows

- Roofing

- Outdoor Living

- Kitchen

- Electrical

- Flooring

- Construction

- Home Improvement

- Article

- Here Are The Most Popular Types Of House Additions

Advertiser Disclosure

The Forbes Home editorial team is independent and objective. To help support our reporting work, and to continue our ability to provide this content for free to our readers, we receive compensation from the companies that advertise on the Forbes Home site. This compensation comes from two main sources. First, we provide paid placements to advertisers to present their offers. The compensation we receive for those placements affects how and where advertisers’ offers appear on the site. This site does not include all companies or products available within the market. Second, we also include links to advertisers’ offers in some of our articles; these “affiliate links” may generate income for our site when you click on them. The compensation we receive from advertisers does not influence the recommendations or advice our editorial team provides in our articles or otherwise impact any of the editorial content on Forbes Home. While we work hard to provide accurate and up to date information that we think you will find relevant, Forbes Home does not and cannot guarantee that any information provided is complete and makes no representations or warranties in connection thereto, nor to the accuracy or applicability thereof.

# Here Are The Most Popular Types Of House Additions



Christin Perry is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in numerous outlets, including WeddingWire, The Knot, Parents and Verywell Family. When she's not working, Christin enjoys reading, gardening and hanging out with her husband and four young kids. She also loves to do small home improvement projects any chance she gets.



Sami Allen is an editor with a decade of experience in editorial and who is currently the managing editor at Forbes Home. She got her start in lifestyle writing and editing at Oprah Magazine and more recently sharpened her home repair and design skills at websites like The Spruce and HomeAdvisor.



Christin Perry is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in numerous outlets, including WeddingWire, The Knot, Parents and Verywell Family. When she's not working, Christin enjoys reading, gardening and hanging out with her husband and four young kids. She also loves to do small home improvement projects any chance she gets.



Sami Allen is an editor with a decade of experience in editorial and who is currently the managing editor at Forbes Home. She got her start in lifestyle writing and editing at Oprah Magazine and more recently sharpened her home repair and design skills at websites like The Spruce and HomeAdvisor.

Contributor,

Editor

Updated: Aug 1, 2024, 12:23am

We earn a commission from partner links on Forbes Home. Commissions do not affect our editors' opinions or evaluations.

Here Are The Most Popular Types Of House Additions

Getty

## Table of Contents

{{ tocState.toggleTocShowMore ? 'Show more' : 'Show less' }}

Advertisement

THIS IS AN ADVERTISEMENT AND NOT EDITORIAL CONTENT. Please note that we do receive compensation for any products you buy or sign up to via this advertisement, and that compensation impacts the ranking and placement of any offers listed herein. We do not present information about every offer available. The information and savings numbers depicted above are for demonstration purposes only, and your results may vary.

Compare Quotes From Top-rated Addition Contractors

Free, No-commitment Estimates

If you’re like most people, you spend more time in your home than anywhere else. So if there’s something about your home that isn’t quite right, it can become problematic. Often, this happens in an area that doesn’t have quite enough space to meet your needs.

No one wants to deal with nuisances like bottlenecks or awkward, tight spaces in their most common gathering places. Or maybe you moved into a home you love but have outgrown over the years, and could really use another bedroom. Luckily, these problems can be solved by house additions.

If there’s a bit of bad news in this, it’s that you’ll be facing a pretty large expense no matter what type of house addition you choose. Here, we’ll take a look at some of the most popular house additions, like adding onto a house or converting existing space to better meet your needs.

## Add a New Room



Getty

Whether you’ve moved into a home you love that’s just a bit too small, or you’ve outgrown your existing space, adding a new room is a great way to customize your home to your exact needs. But, this type of renovation comes with some major considerations.

First, you want to avoid over-customizing your home. You may want a bedroom right off the living room, but would anyone else? When it comes time to sell your home, it needs to be situated in a way that speaks to potential buyers.

Secondly, consider your home’s value in relation to other homes in your neighborhood. If it’s already valued on the high side, you’ll want to avoid a huge renovation that could push your price tag much higher. If your price point is at the top, you could realize less return on your investment.

If you’re thinking of adding a room to a house, here are some of the more popular house additions to consider.

### Extra Bedroom

Got more kiddos than rooms? It’s an issue that a lot of American families face as the overall cost of a single-family home continues to rise. If you’re in need of an additional bedroom, you’ve probably got a few options to consider in order to score some extra space in your existing home.

However, keep in mind that adding a room to a house requires not only a building permit, but also permission from your homeowner’s association if your home is governed by one. The average price of adding a 12×12 bedroom is around $12,000 to $22,000 (or $100 to $150 per square foot) once a foundation and roofing are added.

### Bathroom

Another room many homeowners desire more of is the bathroom. It’s ideal when each bedroom has its own bathroom, plus a half or vanity bathroom in the main living space for guests to use.

If you’re in need of another bathroom, know that this may seem like one of the smaller house additions upfront. But in reality, you can ring up costs pretty quickly due to extensive plumbing requirements.

The average cost to add a bathroom to a home is between $18,000 and $47,000. Huge variations exist for the size of your chosen bathroom, its proximity to existing plumbing and the materials and fixtures you choose.

A spa-like bathroom off the primary bedroom with marble flooring and walls, granite countertops, high-end fixtures and a walk-in closet can easily cost in excess of $80,000. Luckily, adding a bathroom typically offers a decent return on investment: You can expect to recoup about half of your expenses when you sell your home.

## Bump Out



Getty

If you’re not excited about shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for a substantial addition to your home, you’re certainly not alone. The cost of adding onto a house can be prohibitive. But if it’s just a small amount of extra space you’re looking for, consider a bump out.

Sometimes called a micro addition, a bump out is typically between two and 15 feet. Any more than that, and you’ll have to pay extra to include support beams and concrete footings, making your bump out more like a conventional house addition.

If such a small addition doesn’t seem worth it at first, consider that 2 or 3 square feet is enough to accommodate a dining room table or add a center island to a cramped kitchen.

For a two-foot bump out, you can expect to pay as little as $5,000 or as much as $30,000, depending on the size of the existing room. A bump-out that provides only 10 square feet might be on the lower side of the spectrum, while a two-foot bump out on a 30-foot kitchen that requires existing plumbing to be moved can easily cost $30,000.

## Sunroom or Four-Season Room



Getty

Enjoy the sunrise and sunset from the comfort of your home when you add a sunroom. These bright, open spaces are typically appended to the back or side of a house and are not temperature controlled by the home’s existing HVAC system. That helps a sunroom be one of the more affordable house additions.

Of course, a sunroom can be made into a four-season room by adding heating and cooling.

The price range for a sunroom is $100 to $350 per square foot. If you’d like to add a 100-square-foot sunroom to your home, you can expect to pay between $15,000 and $35,000. On the other end of the spectrum, a vast, temperature-controlled four-season room can cost upwards of $80,000 to $ 125,000.

## Garage Conversion



Getty

For additional square footage without the enormous bill, many homeowners look to a part of their home that’s perfect for optimizing into brand new interior space—their garage.

Sure, your car, lots of kids’ toys and your partner’s tools might get kicked to the curb, but a garage is the perfect blank slate for adding much-needed square footage to your home without paying for a full addition.

The price range of converting or renovating a garage is $5,900 to $22,000, with an average cost hovering right around $14,000.

Advertisement

THIS IS AN ADVERTISEMENT AND NOT EDITORIAL CONTENT. Please note that we do receive compensation for any products you buy or sign up to via this advertisement, and that compensation impacts the ranking and placement of any offers listed herein. We do not present information about every offer available. The information and savings numbers depicted above are for demonstration purposes only, and your results may vary.

Compare Quotes From Top-rated Addition Contractors

Free, No-commitment Estimates

### Bottom Line

When it comes to adding a room to a house by using the garage, the good news is that you can make it just about anything you’d like: an in-law suite, extra living space, a game room and extra bedrooms are all popular ways to utilize former garage space.

The bad news? You’ll have to pay to have the space insulated, and you’ll have to add heating/cooling and potentially even plumbing to your new space. These additions will drive up the price tag of your house addition, but the convenience of using space you already have might be worth it.

There are several ways to add a room to a house. It comes down to your budget and your desire for additional space; how you’ll use it, where it should be located and whether it needs to be converted or newly added.

Home Improvement

Information provided on Forbes Home is for educational purposes only. The products and services we review may not be right for your individual circumstances.

Forbes Home adheres to strict editorial integrity standards. To the best of our knowledge, all content is accurate as of the date posted, though offers contained herein may no longer be available. The opinions expressed are the author’s alone and have not been provided, approved, or otherwise endorsed by our partners.

Christin Perry is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in numerous outlets, including WeddingWire, The Knot, Parents and Verywell Family. When she's not working, Christin enjoys reading, gardening and hanging out with her husband and four young kids. She also loves to do small home improvement projects any chance she gets.

Sami Allen is an editor with a decade of experience in editorial and who is currently the managing editor at Forbes Home. She got her start in lifestyle writing and editing at Oprah Magazine and more recently sharpened her home repair and design skills at websites like The Spruce and HomeAdvisor.

forbes logo
© 2024 Forbes Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.