Addition to L-Shaped House

12 years ago

Need advice! We bought a big time fixer upper...the original part of the house was built in 1790 and there have been additions over time. It is an L-shaped house. The upstairs is a nightmare and we are trying to reconfigure and add an addition to help with the flow. Also, the house is pretty darn ugly from the outside (we are painting it as soon as we figure out this issue!!!) and an addition to make the house more rectangular rather than L-shaped would add aesthetics and would just make the house better overall . The problem is the roof lines.....can anyone help? I have attached an older picture (we have since pressure washed our house) that shows the two roof lines. Our thoughts are to put the addition in the vacant area but again...how the heck to you address the roof lines?

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Comments (5)

Jay
10 years ago
Just stumbled upon this old post while searching for a similar solution. What, if anything, did you wind up doing?
Katie B
10 years ago
We also have the same question....we have a small L-shaped ranch that would benefit from a few more square feet but the roofline looks too difficult to add onto.
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km kane
10 years ago
Hard to say without know what the inside of the house looks like, but I'm sure you are going to need an architect to help you structurally. Best money you'll spend I guarantee. Otherwise it could be more of a mess, especially with a historic house.
lvickers7
Original Author
10 years ago
We started with this:

and ended up with this:

We went so far over budget due to the framing of tying in the old roofline construction with the new and having to raise the roof so we would have usable space in the addition...things that our builder didn't think through until we were so far into construction it was too late to turn back. It's possible but as another commenter said - hire an architect - it will be the best money you spend. It could have saved us so much hassle.
km kane
10 years ago
Well, next time you will hire one, but hey!!!!! You ended up with a gorgeous home. I'm so happy for you. It is lovely and I hope you are happy with the end result. I'm sure you will get the value out of it over time. For now, enjoy! I'd love to see the inside, I do so love old houses. Thanks for sharing and thanks for saving this place.