Tear it down and start over. You want to spend more on project s than the house cost to buy. Your ideas are not grounded in the reality of “very little on hand capital”.

If I just tear it down, I will have to shorten the house by 15' to comply with the new set back requirements. I have 20k for upfront capital and can finance the rest. I purchased the home at a higher interest rate. I will do one project and then refinance to do the next one.

A project like that is completely impractical. You'll never gain in value what you spend. Sell it to some fool and buy the house you really want. Or put yourself into bankruptcy. Your choice.

So much negativity... I'm not sure what happened to this app.

It's all about location! trying to build my forever home. I looked hard and long for a lot that I liked on a great lake near the Twin Cities. It's not about getting a financial return on the property. I'm 31 years old and want to build a house that I can live in forever and raise my family in. And don't worry about me going bankrupt... I have an excellent career and make great money.

I'd suck up the new setback rules, tear the house down, and rebuild before I'd consider what you're proposing. And however much money you make, bad financial decisions can destroy everything you're working hard to achieve.

See how much you can do and still call it a remodel that will be grandfathered on the setback. It's possible that you'd have to remove that addition on the lake side to do any upgrade.

JM$.02W

Then figure out how to raise 300K cash. 20K won’t do squat. other than replace the asphalt shingle roof with another asphalt shingle roof, exactly as is. That’s the architect’s fee. Nothing else.

HU-955941711, I am working with the local township and their contacted planning company on what I can do and can't. the current footprint is grandfathered in.

To answer your question: your best bet is to do it once, even if you have to delay it. You need to get a creative consultant in to help assess the possibilities. I feel your pain about the negativity from some of the "contributors" here. Lotta chips on shoulders.

Thanks Seabornman. You are probably right. I am spending the weekend in Minneapolis at a convention to meet with architects. hopefully I can find one that I like, and is willing to take on the project

You say grandfathered in, but making the changes you want may remove the grandfathering and require you to meet newer codes.

I would be willing to bet that if you pick the house up and put a new basement and foundation in, your setback grandfathering in is screwed. There are very specific rules for this in MN around lakes that I am intimately familiar with. Your current footprint is grandfathered in, but once you start digging in the ground for new foundations, you don't have your current footprint anymore.

Also have you checked if their is a roof line height limitation? Around many lakes today 2 stories is a no-go.

Okay assuming I'm wrong, I would pick the house up and get your basement first and forget the trusses. Just put a damn beam in for now if you want to take out walls.

However, as above posters have stated, I don't think you have any concept of how much picking up a house, putting a new basement under it, and re-building the roof structure would cost. 20K is like......nothing in the face of that. When you pick a house up, instantly every single utility on site will have to come up to modern code because you touch everything. You will probably spend 60-80K JUST doing the basement.

I also know electrical regs in MN. Your mast is illegal. They'll make you put a new service in to the house when you touch something. That will be $3K bam right off the bat.