When we did a whole house gut job we worked out what we could afford first and then went backward. We knew what we could afford to spend and then went backward priorities of our wants and met with a couple of people to figure out what was realistic within the budget.

How does a potential larger investment skew the value of your property relative to the other properties nearby ? over renovating is risky . You have to decide and come in to something specific. In my area they have Builders Home Tours ..remodels and all sorts w price breakdowns posted for each finished project....reps on site for q and a from the public...they are looking for customers / avail yourself to get a panorama of what can be done in this exploratory phase....the kinds of info you may be needing are out there....Also..your area's construction/ renovation costs will be unique ..you'll want that info.

Having a million ideas means you have no idea which means you’re just as likely to sell the house or not do anything at all. Until you figure out what works, what doesn’t work in your house, you aren’t even close to a beginning stage of contracting firms to get estimates.

Take your thoughts and all your ideas and answer if is it a want or a need? You may have seen something nice in a magazine or online and thought "I would love that in my kitchen"- what about it do you like? Is it something you can do in your home or are you just dreaming. You will find sometimes that you have a lot more wants then needs. You need to plant your feet in reality and let go of the dream. Come to the table to present to a firm with 2 ideas, thoughts and want you need out of this renovation. Get rid of the rest as they are most likely dreams. Most important is adding an addition outpricing your neighborhood. If you want to do more thinking and just need someone to say 'no drop that idea and here is why' I would ask if the firm offers an hourly rate to start an initial discussion. This way you get the feed back you want. Another option is to post here with pictures and your ideas. You will get people giving their unbiased opinion if you want it or not. Make sure when posting pictures you also post your floor plan and keep it general. Do not lead with your ideas, let others chime in with their own and see if they match yours.

"Can't make up my mind"

"that feels like a lot to spend and not get official drawings.........."

Drawings of what and for what? Yup a WASTE of time and money. Time.......IS money. You invest yours, before you ask someone to invest theirs.

..............................

What is the room most bothersome? The kitchen?

The primary suite is too small? You want a bigger shower, a larger closet?

Start there......

Now?

You add a floor plan here, that floor plan is 100% accurate, has a dimension for every solid wall, every window, opening , doorway EACH, for the current condition of the house.

You add pictures!

You upload all of it.....as jpegs everyone can see. The first floor , the second floor if there is one.

An accurate floor plan for a kitchen looks like this: See how EVERY dimension is on there? Every wall , window opening and where it goes?You do yours, same way ....

Start from facts:

You won't move walls, get a whole new kitchen gutted, new appliances for less than a 80k - 150k

k , depending your level of quality, size of kitchen.

There are no mind reading contractors, design build firms, builders, designers any.

You have to clarify your needs, by room. You need a wish list.

I must have.

I would LOVE to have.

Design is first, FUNCTION. Any house, any room, anywhere.

There are no mind readers here, either.

"Until you figure out what works, what doesn’t work in your house, you aren’t even close to a beginning stage of contracting firms to get estimates."

That ^^.........and what is possible will include lot line, set backs for any addition. The "possible" within a foot print means all I noted before this bold text, just to get help, HERE.

I agree with @WestCoast Hopeful - nothing is more clarifying that real budgets -

we were between 2 design build firms for a vacation cottage - did a lot dithering until asking about real money - one was $400/sq foot and one was $500/square foot (that addl $100 adds up real fast)…. decision made 😅

Of course you can't get a price without a plan IMO what you need is a budget and only you can decide that. Then you sit down and figure what you NEED to make the home more livable for you Official drawings come when you have an actul plan . The list you posted here is not a plan or even close . For instance when I sart work for a kitchen with anew client I ask them to make 2 lists a must have and hope we can have . The buget drives the hope list. So That is your homework if you want help here .

What is your budget 80K for a kitchen redo? 300K for a master suite addition? 700K to pop the top and add another floor? 1.2M to knock it down and build the house that you really really want, and didn't buy?

Everything is constrained by the budget. What's yours? Then, you have a priority list of projects, and match that with the budget, until the cash is gone. If your budget is only 15K, that's not going to begin to do a kitchen, or a bath, so you should look at cosmetic things, like painting and better lighting. Etc. Then, save towards the more expensive projects.

What's your budget? That's the first thing that any contractor will ask when presented with a fantasy list of changes. Not knowing your budget, and having a really long list of things that make a teardown be cheaper is a big red flag to almost everyone you would talk with. It shows you have not invested any time or money in your ideas. To get taken seriously, you have to invest legwork and funds on the front end. They aren't going to waste their time if you have not put in effort.

If your funds are limited, then you really need to DIY your projects. Start with something small like taking down wallpaper, prepping the wall, and painting, etc. Build your skills, and build your tools.

Reverse engineer. Start with a budget and what you HAVE to renovate.

That 7K is the handholding fee to get someone eith zero y to research or commit, to commit to anything.

Write down your budget. Then walk around your house for a few minutes every day and put post-it's on anything that really bugs you in one color and things you like in another color. At the end of a week, you'll have a better idea what you really want to fix or change.

Please clarify:

Is the whole house worn out, beat-up and needing repairs, paint, new flooring, new lighting, new HVAC, and upgraded 200 amp electrical panel?

Or is it in pretty good shape but just not what you want in terms of bigger size, updated everything, or better floor plan?

ADD and planning remodeling do not mix well. It's not surprising that no one will deal with you, when you can't even focus on stuff yourself. Focus on one single aspect here: what you can afford.

#1 Start with what is your maximum budget for any changes. What is that number?

#2 is which of the public rooms has the most problems, and will need the most money to deal with?

Does #2 exceed #1, or do you have money left over?

Real life is not a HGTV show.

7K of design work is a barrier to you moving forward? That isn't even 10% of a kitchen remodel. It’s less than 1% of all the projects you’ve listed.

You have some number/budget in your head or your bank account. Is it $50k or $200k? Can you take that amount, add it to the current value of your property and still not be the most expensive house on the block? You NEVER want to be the most expensive house on the block.

Your budget will tell you what projects you can consider and what projects are out of your reach. Keep in mind that the $300 per sq ft is the bare minimum for building a structure and adding on will be more because there are always surprises when you do an addition.

Ask yourself hard budget questions about what you can comfortably spend to get your thoughts grounded. We don't know your real estate market, so hard to say if any addition or remodel will price you out of the neighborhood so forget that for now.

Put pencil to paper or keys to Excel cells, start with a kitchen.

1. add up the cost of the appliances you will need, stoves, ovens, ranges, refrigerators, dishwasher, disposal, microwave, vent hood other?. Good ones, not great, at least 20K
2. consider the cost of the flooring you want to use and then multiply the labor and materials cost by the square footage - at least 15K in my area for anything except carpet.
3. consider the cost of cabinets - a cabinet pro on Houzz recently posted costs of good made in the US cabinets (no tariffs).. try to find that post. Or, look around you for cabinet costs and multiply what you want. At least 20K for a small kitchen
4. Countertops? At least 3k for nothin' special

and on it goes. We're at 58K and we haven't moved a wall, installed plumbing, drywall, electrical or added square footage. If you are good with that, keep going with other items, plumbing fixtures, lighting fixtures, cabinet hardware, etc. Focus your thoughts on what you can readily cost out. Feel when you start going, yikes!

Once you've found the number that makes you vibrate uncontrollably, make your list of needs and wants. Take that to a design/build firm and tell them your budget (number that makes you vibrate uncontrollably) your needs, and wants. A good firm will charge you for design/costing work. Add that in.

Your choices or costs in your area will differ from what I am familiar with but you get the idea. You can get your own ballpark just with the things that go into what you want to design without the shell. Do some research to settle your ideas. You can do it.

All the best to you on this journey.

https://www.jlconline.com/cost-vs-value/2025/

Click on the link @Tish posted and for each of the items you're considering, click on the details. That won't help you with removing walls, but it will start to give you a ballpark on what you can and can't afford.

That said, people usually renovate because there's a problem area. The kitchen is too small, for example. But you're considering both renovating within the current footprint and expanding it --- that suggests you don't need the expansion. Maybe that's why you can't make up your mind.

You could also call contractors and ask for a very ballpark figure. What's the range of prices when renovating a kitchen that is X feet by Y feet? What's the ballpark figure for a two-story addition of X size? Sometimes, contractors will give you a very general figure on the phone.

I am planning a big renovation currently with a well established design-build firm in my area. I knew the things I wanted but did not know all the possibilities (and costs) to achieve it. As a part of their process, I paid a very small percentage of the total projected cost (about 1% - but they gave me a bit of a break, so it was a slightly less than that), and they had their designer and architect draw up three options - with several revisions made until I figured out exactly which plan would best suit my needs. The process was great because I got to see what the possibilities were and the cost associated with each - and then I picked the one that best fit my needs and budget. I am currently in the next phases of planning and finalizing, and I am so excited for it to start - and be over! Anyway, if you can find a design-build firm that can do this in your area, it will really help you figure this out.

I'm not sure what part of the country you're in, but in the DC Metro area where I live, the well-regarded design/build firms are not hurting for clients. There's no need for them to spend time on handholding when other clients are ready to go.

I had a idea, a few years back, that I might want to do a major renovation -- relocating an badly-placed staircase so that I could expand my kitchen and dining room. So, yes, I did invest some money to get an architect to draw up plans for what that could look like, so that I could "shop them around" to various firms. When the estimates came back at around $150K-$200K, I knew then I didn't have the resources to do those dream goals, and I would have to dial things way back. But I would not have been able to make an informed decision had I not taken the time (and spent the money) to narrow down my ideas to something that a firm could really evaluate. I guess one could look at that money as "wasted," since I didn't move forward with a big renovation. But people deserve to be paid for their time and professional advice.

If you were in the DMV, I would say that every idea you've suggested starts at six figures, easily. I don't think you need to spend $7000 to narrow down your ideas, but since you're thinking of six figure renovations, spending 1-2 percent of that to narrow your ideas seems like a reasonable investment to me. Maybe start with an architect, not a design/build firm.

Seems Elvis left the building..................?

Perhaps. But even abandoned threads can be useful for others in the future! :-) I've learned a lot digging through the "archives."

I would not say abandoned but we seem to be getting more of these lately. We take time to answer but theOPs seem to not have any plan to asnwer us so why ask for help at all ?????

Too many younger people grew up with HGTV, not realizing it was *entertainment* and not a documentary. Truth is hard, but taking your toys and going back to the crib is the worse way of dealing with harsh realities of the money needed to fulfill the fantasy they have.

^^

No worries......neither do I!

An op can say " So noted" ! Thanks. Or not.

Can say nothing, be "Elvis the evaporating" and response is , okie dokie! or go ahead and post your thought. It's the internet and a free country.

You'd be 100% correct in that we do it for passion, for fun, to be helpful. Perhaps not perfectly worded, right down to are you NUTS?

It's the internet....as many replies as members may care to contribute.

Nobody, (not even WC) controls it. Try she may : )

On that note, and should the op return? Some fuller context to her question - jpegs, a floor plan sketch.....just about anything, might help her focus on what the biggest needs and wants might be. That is the real point, isn't it? It won't cost her 7k , that much is certain.

You are putting cart before the horse. You want to know how much a renovation will cost, but the renovation that you will get, will be determined by the amount of money that you are willing to spend. So the first question for you to answer is how much do you have to spend? When you answer that, then you can start planning. Is it $10,000 or $500,000, or more likely somewhere in between?

After you answer that question, then if you put your jpeg current floor plan sketch as Jan requested above, you will get some good plan ideas from the pros on this site, as well as some general cost ideas. For instance a 2 story addition, is going to cost SIGNIFICANTLY more than a remodel or refresh in the kitchen's current footprint.

So first and foremost, what is the budget? Then post a floor plan. Then you will start getting really helpful ideas about what is a realistic scope for your project.

I always like it when an OP comes and tells us what they did.

I’m still here and appreciate all the feedback! It will take me some time to compile all that was requested but will do that once I can.

More info:

DC area

Budget up to $450k

House on a slope so an addition to our main level is essentially a second story addition; some restrictive zoning that means we can only push back (and would still need a variance)

I should also qualify that I’ve been thinking about this for 5 years, had narrowed down what I want to do (kitchen expansion into dining room, no addition; door to backyard thru living room w a deck and stairs that lead to the large yard), then got three opinions from contractors who wouldn’t stop talking about all the other things they could do and then I got overwhelmed.

House is in great condition, except for the kitchen (and lacks a master bathroom on the top, essentially 3rd story). We don’t NEED to do any of this, but I want a kitchen that I’m not embarrassed of and more open space for the family to spread out in. Another bathroom, when I have three teenagers in the house, will be helpful down the line.

Should I update my post here w floor plans or start a new post for it? (I am new to Houzz so am still learning the etiquette. Thank you for bearing w me.)

I am also in the DC area. I am working with CASE. I had lots of ideas and things I wanted to fix in my house, and I didn't know where to go with them. I had also been thinking about this FOR YEARS! I paid them around 1% of my total budget (actually a bit less), and they gave me three plans based on the things I wanted. This helped me figure out exactly what I wanted, which was mostly from my own head and now theirs, and we came up with a final plan that accomplished what I wanted within a budget that was comfortable for me. We are in the finalizing the contract phase currently, and construction will start in a few months. You can message me privately if you want more information!

It seems your biggest wish is better/larger kitchen that isn't "embarrassing'? followed by a bathroom for the primary suite? Which is second story of the house, and you are counting it as third story?

You haven't posted any jpegs this past week.

You could at the least, do a floor plan, of how this all connects on first/major floor.

A tape measure, walls, windows, opening hallways as they exist. label the rooms. Give every one of the windows, openings , solid wall a dimension.

It sounds very hard......but a little patience and most anyone can do it.

Start at the front door: )

There are a lot of creative minds but they can't "Imagine" the space any other way.

Jan, OP asked if they should add a floor plan here.

I think you could get help if you continue to post your plan here-no need to start a new thread.

However, your latest communication about what you want is a bit unclear. You start out with good relevant information-you have a nice hefty budget. Then you talk about an addition, but in the next paragraph you state that you don't want an addition, just opening up the kitchen into the dining space. That is confusing.

I think you have decided that you do not want an addition. Is that correct?

It sounds like you really want the majority of work to be done on your main floor/kitchen, and to include adding or enlarging a deck off your main living space? Is that correct?

FInally it sounds like if it's in the budget, you would like to have an additional master bathroom on your third floor. Is that correct?

The pros will want the floor plan of your current house, showing lengths of each wall, window and door. Also pictures of your current home, from various angles, so that they can get a sense of the space and style of your home, and what is and isn't working.

Yes please to the floor plan and some info to understand the main issues .