Taking the plunge to expand your home with an addition is an exciting endeavor; you get to reap the rewards of added value, architectural interest, and square footage to your home while exercising some creative control over which additions are made and how. An addition is a great way to make even an old home feel fresh, new, and exciting.

While additions are pretty exhilarating, it’s important to remember that they’re also huge commitments. There are several questions that you should ask yourself (and even your family) before making the leap and starting on an addition. Not only will you likely get a better feel for what it is you want to achieve, but you’ll also have a better bank of information to provide contractors who help you with your build.

Three Critical Questions to Ask Before Building an Addition Onto Your Home

What problem (or problems) are you trying to solve?

If you’ve ever been in sales, you know that the key to getting a customer to buy lies in creating a need for whatever you’re selling. Need is born out of problems; and, provided you’re not rolling in dough with infinite amounts of time on your hands, what you need out of your addition should be a direct answer to problems you’re already facing.

Sort out what problems you’re trying to solve through integrating an addition into your home. Not only will it make your mission clearer, but it’ll make teaming up with contractors much easier. If your contractor understands the problems you’re trying to address, he or she can effectively lead you towards cost- and time-effective solutions.

Are you keeping your lifestyle and your home’s architecture in mind?

All too often, people get ahead of themselves and rush to build on additions without real consideration for their lifestyle or their home’s architecture. Ignoring factors like these opens you up to the possibility of making some decisions that are useless at best and disastrous at worst.

If you know you’re never home and hardly get an opportunity to relax, you might want to reconsider that man cave; on the flip side, maybe that hangout spot is exactly what you need during your few solitary moments at home. It’s all about what you need, what you’ll realistically use, and how that works (or doesn’t work) in your daily life.

Keep your home’s design in mind, too. This is especially critical if you plan on selling your home in the future. Additions that don’t mesh with a home’s aesthetic can be jarring, but in some cases, they may even drop your house’s market value.

How will you find the right people for the job?

You’re going to need to know exactly what the right people for the job look like before you even begin your search. Do thorough research into addition projects and the teams that tend to be behind them; if you have friends, family, or acquaintances who have completed home additions, consider asking them about their experiences.

From there, you’ll need to work aggressively to scout out a team that’s reliable in every sense of the word. Look for contractors who are timely, produce quality work, and who you can trust around your property. Additions require a lot of work– you’ll need someone for demolition, foundational, and electric work at the very least. You may even need to bring in plumbers.

All of this is to say that you’ll wind up with a lot of vetting on your plate. Never compromise on your standards when you begin to piece your team together. Search high and low for the best people for your job, not just the best people for the job.