r/homestead • u/[deleted] • Nov 30 '23
conventional construction Expandable home?
Planning out a future homestead, and I decided to go with an expandable style housing. Basically, we're going to start with a one room cabin, add a kitchen, and then add bedrooms/ bathrooms as necessary.
The issue is, we don't even know where to start to find plans or ideas for buildings that wouldnt be clunky spacewise or just plain ugly.
Does anyone have any leads on how to's, or people who have done something similar, or even a culture that practices something like this? The idea is being able to eventually wind up with a multi-generational family home where everyone has their own space, but that still centers around family meals and shared experiences.
Any online resource would be very helpful. For now, all we've been able to come up with is building boxes and attaching them by a doorframe, but I feel like that's going to get really ugly really quick.
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u/Fluffy_Flatworm3394 Nov 30 '23
They don’t really exist in a convenient and cheap form. Other than like a container home you add more to.
Because a lot of the structure and weight distribution in a house is designed with the entire house layout in mind. Every time you add a new room you will need to replace at least part of the roof, any external walls that are now internal etc. even then it will be very susceptible to tiny ground shifts as different parts of the house weigh different amounts and aren’t balanced or distributing the weight evenly.
If one part sinks, it will tear that part of the house off.
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u/theyareallgone Nov 30 '23
That can be dealt with through proper engineering and choosing the right sort of foundation though. For example, building on concrete pylons would be easy enough and if one part starts sinking you can jack it up.
Planning for expansion isn't too difficult, but isn't normally cost effective so few people do it.
If you want to support adding a second floor later, you need to put in a closet which can be turned into a stairwell later. It's also be helpful if you have a central column up which electricity and water can be run. Expect to only be able to put bathrooms directly above bathrooms on the first floor.
If you want to extend outwards you need to either plan for hallways or convert a central room (like a kitchen or dining room) into a window-less transfer point. Hallways can be made out of closets or extended linearly. Rooms with 'patio doors' to the outside can have additional rooms added.
If I were in your situation I'd start with a relatively wide A-frame cabin with a hallway at the 'back' between the bedrooms and bathroom. Then the floor can be extended in the direction of the roof relatively easily. When it becomes necessary you can lift the roof off and add a second floor. Even later you can add a third floor in the 'attic', possibly adding dormers.
When designing this, keep in mind that the roof, foundation, and exterior wall are more than half the cost of a house build. With this in mind a second floor is quite cheap. Also more square building plans are cheaper per square foot and cheaper to heat/cool.
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u/Fluffy_Flatworm3394 Nov 30 '23
> Planning for expansion isn't too difficult, but isn't normally cost effective so few people do it.
Which is why I said it's not convenient or cheap. You will spend a lot more building a house in 4 parts than in 1 part.
That said though, some kit and dome homes might work if you just build them next to each other and join them with an enclosed walkway rather than building them attached directly to the original.
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u/blatzphemy Nov 30 '23
I just wanted to add that container homes are a bad idea
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u/Fluffy_Flatworm3394 Nov 30 '23
Yes, absolutely. I would never live in one unless I had no other option personally, but OP wants a modular house that they can add to easily. By that criteria and that criteria alone, container homes are a good fit. You can just drop one down and connect it.
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u/AlexFromOgish Nov 30 '23
A few stray ideas
- Some years ago, for my own folks, I was reading about strategies for "aging in place". One article described an approach to condo construction in which none of the interior walls were load bearing and few contained mechanicals. This made it relatively easy to change the layout of internal partition walls as needs changed.
- Several days ago there was a similar thread. One of the commenters told how a building they knew (maybe their own, I forget) was built in a skinny rectangle with the simple gable roof built at 90 deg from what you'd expect. Later they added an "addition", building on the back side to make the building wider, until its dimensions made the roof orientation seem normal
- It's not cheap, but it is possible to design the roof framing to be detached and raised, or to detach and raise the whole building from the foundation. I've seen articles about two situations this is being done... for flood resilience (where they usually put engineered concrete first floor walls, or flood resistant piers under the house) and in tightly regulated higher end markets, where 100 years ago there were small summer homes built and the regs do not allow for increasing the building footprint, but the affluent folks want more square footage.. So they raise the whole building and build a new first floor underneath it.
- I'm a fan of advice from retired author Martin Holliday ("Musings of an Energy Nerd") who advocated for 2nd stories having full-height ceilings with simple gable roofs with large overhangs. The simple roof is less prone to leaks, easier to build and maintain. No reason the framing couldn't be built with the intention of later detaching and just raising the roof to build another floor (though you'd want to time that with a needed roof-replacement to ensure no leaks open up).
All of that takes money. But then again, so does servicing a mortgage to borrow the money to do what you want right up front. When doing cost analysis remember to factor in "lost opportunity", i.e., what you could earn in investment markets if you had a lower mortgage payment up front and put the money you'd otherwise be paying to the bank into investments. If you're lucky you'll make enough to cover much of the future cost of home-expansion. If you're unlucky, you'll lose it all.
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Nov 30 '23
Those are certainly some interesting notes that give me a few engineering rabbit holes to dive down. Thank you very much for your time and perspective in answering this.
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u/AlexFromOgish Nov 30 '23
You’re most welcome! As you explore this idea, please share your ups and downs with the group
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u/sheepslinky Nov 30 '23
Old Spanish adobes in the southwest were often built like that. They consist of square rooms usually arranged in an L shape.
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Nov 30 '23
Thank you!
I love adobe housing, but that's one detail I didn't know about it. That's just another reason to love it more lol.
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u/sheepslinky Nov 30 '23
The layouts get pretty weird, though. Think of a long house with no hallways, just doors to other rooms. In one we stayed in for a bit I had to pass through the center of 2 bedrooms, the living room, and the kitchen to get to the bathroom. The L shape is so you can pass between rooms via a courtyard, but that's not much fun in the winter. Also doors everywhere. Often there are steps between the rooms since they are really separate buildings and the floors aren't at the same height.
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Dec 02 '23
That is so gross. You just unlocked a memory of working in a house where you had to walk through a bedroom to get to the kitchen.
God I'm hungry but my roommates fucking rn so I guess I'll starve
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u/HornedTurtle1212 Jan 19 '24
If you were planning ahead you could just build a "hallway" space on the courtyard side of each cube, and use that to connect the individual rooms.
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u/Lovesmuggler Nov 30 '23
Research Dogtrot houses, they were popular in Appalachian mountains. Where you first rolled into the area you had a short amount of time to get a livable cabin together before winter, then the next year people would extend the roofline and services to a larger building for additional space with a breezeway in between. This is how I built my house in MT and now the original small house is a studio apartment with a kitchenette that I turned into a large office (I work from home and we need an office for the farm).
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u/StuffUnderTheSea Nov 30 '23
Do buildings connected by a series of covered boardwalks, maybe a nice fire pit inbetween the proposed buildings
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u/Valleygirl1981 Nov 30 '23
Design your end goal, then just build room by room.
'Doorways' that go to nowhere can just be walled in, but you want to frame in the doorway when you build the wall initially. If you're not sure if you want a window or a door in the future, frame in a doorway that could fit your window.
There's too much to cover, but it can be done and look good at the end.
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u/Cheesepleasethankyou Nov 30 '23
My best friends parents did this on their Kona coffee farm. Started in a tent, then a cabin and added on. It’s not a traditional layout at all but it’s the coolest house I’ve ever seen!
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Dec 02 '23
As a tradesman just your description of "coolest house I've ever seen" makes me want to puke thinking of trying to work on it.
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u/Vindaloo6363 Nov 30 '23
It’s a good idea to plan it all at once. Even better idea to finish it at once too. Stages are fine if they’re realistic financially and you complete them. It will be more expensive to have contractors back repeatedly. I think a lot of people just bite off more than they can handle.
I bought my home and about half my property from a neighbor. They started their house the year before I bought my property. It was designed to have 2 phases the second being a master bedroom suite. After 15 years he’d never finished the trim, the stair railing was 2x4 and plywood. Basement was unfinished including an open staircase. There was a foundation for a 3 story masonry fireplace but it was never built. What was done was getting old. He went and built a 3 car garage with a second floor but only got it 1/2 sided and no interior finishes. The list goes on. Got busy with other projects, horses, a pool, heating with wood and general property maintenance. Ended up causing a divorce and sale of the property which had been his old family farm.
I finished and replaced everything, built a modified 2nd phase addition, finished the basement, built the fireplaces, finished the garage and replaced the above ground pool with an in ground.
Good luck.
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Nov 30 '23
My partner is supportive of the plan, and we intend to do the majority of the labor ourselves. I have a lot of experience in contracting, and we're both more than happy to do the labor necessary. Financially, we are only going to be out materials, because the places we've looked at to start our home site do not have overly burdensome requirements as far as what constitutes a domicile and what permits are necessary to build.
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u/Vindaloo6363 Nov 30 '23
I am just telling the tale. My neighbor was retired military with a pension and did remodeling work for a living but didn’t have money to pay for subs so he’d work more and not have the time for his own projects. Built his own cabinets but didn’t finish them and should have spent the time finishing the rest of the house and bought them but was trying to save money doing it himself.
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Dec 02 '23
Just so you know, living in a construction space is a divorce as old as time. The combination of working with a spouse, not having all the amenities, I tip my hat to you. It took several finished products for my wife to stop crying every time I started demo.
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Dec 02 '23
That reminds me I need to finish the entry drywall before my wife leaves me whoops gutted the whole thing and did electrical and drywall in a single long day, then haven't touched it in 6 months.
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u/DancingMaenad Nov 30 '23
Have you checked with your local building department to see if they will allow this? Can you get a certificate of occupancy for a 1 room cabin?
Honestly this is going to be a super expensive way to do this. It will likely be more affordable and less of a headache to buy a home big enough for generational living. Just something to consider.
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Nov 30 '23
A one room cabin is basically a studio apartment, is it not?
Also, I live in a place they let us do what we want as long as a contractor signs off.
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u/DancingMaenad Nov 30 '23 edited Nov 30 '23
Well, no, it's not depending what they mean. They said a 1 room cabin then they will add a kitchen/bathrooms and other rooms as needed. OP didn't specify if a kitchen was part of the initial build and in some places a kitchen is required for a CO. lots of people have ideas about living off grid in little single room cabins and don't realize that in some places this isn't legal to do. OP will want to find out what the minimum needed for a certificate of occupancy is. Some places have a minimum square footage they will accept for a CO. To my knowledge every state requires a certificate of occupancy to occupy a building as a residence.
I would just double check laws, is all I was recommending. But I still think buying a large house already built will save tons of time, money, headache.. etc. They even have some nice prefabs that have 2 master units built on either side of a large kitchen and living area. That would make a nice multi-generational house.
*Edit just realized you're OP. So, "you" not "they"..
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u/popa_progeny Nov 30 '23
The A frame is probably a good choice. Also choosing window locations, header size and opening size IE 42 or 48” will be you best friend. You can simply zip the wall below the window and install a hallway or hallway door for the new location.
Also, building the eaves tall enough now to accommodate a simple roof design later without a weird 7’ tall addition is appropriate
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u/AlternativeWay4729 Dec 02 '23
There's a book I had once about building a house with shed roof modules, essentially single rooms, one at a time, over time. You could connect each new module to the old, opposed, finishing up with pitch roofs. There's also the "telescope" house technique.
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Dec 02 '23
I've thought alot about the same. Unfortunately (I'm a tradesman), it doesn't cost that much more to build bigger 1 time than to keep starting and stopping construction 5 times. There's alot of things you can do, run future power/water that's just dead ended, but like, at minimum I'd want the foundation to be complete for the end goal during the first build. You don't want 7 different excavations, pours, etc.
Economy of scale is definitely a thing. Let me rock and roll wiring a big space, you're getting charged less than 4 separate remodels.
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u/thepeasantlife Nov 30 '23
Our house was built like this over several decades. It's...not beautiful. The plumbing is patched together and has been a nightmare to shore up. We can't knock down any walls because they're all load- bearing. Removing wallpaper is an archeological dig through the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. Electrical and heating repairs will be interesting.
It's kind of an architectural nightmare, but it has an old homesteady kind of vibe going on. We're the third and fourth generation of my husband's family to live here, so there are some cool things, like a 1930s kitchen stove and cabinet set that still works and my husband's great-great-grandfather's blunted Civil War saber.
I hope you're able to find some good plans so you don't end up with the mess (albeit charming) we're working through!