Remodel or Add On? How Homeowners Decide

Key Takeaways

• Add on when the neighborhood comparables are larger homes and a refinance or future sale depends on matching them.
• Remodel when the square footage is fine but the bathrooms, closets and entries are in the wrong places.
• Design and pre-construction take about two to four months before construction starts, and a typical remodel carries 300 or more decisions.
• A good design-build quote lands on a budgetary number within about 5% before work begins.
• A kitchen that cost about $125,000 to build a few years ago runs about $225,000 today.
• Most remodels earn back a good portion of their cost over five to ten years of ownership.

Should You Remodel or Move?

Moving can be the better answer when the remodel budget would buy most of what you want somewhere else. Ask yourself that question directly before a project starts: if you are about to spend $300,000, $400,000 or more, does that investment fit the neighborhood, and does it fit your life?

The answer usually turns on things a floor plan cannot change: the school, how close family lives, and whether you can picture leaving the neighborhood at all. When the location is right, a remodel or addition keeps you there. When it is not, CJ Norman and Katy Norman can show what the same budget buys in a home that already fits, and a home value estimate shows what you are starting from. Their renovate or sell guide works through the same decision from the selling side.

When Adding On Makes Sense

Adding on makes sense when the house is smaller than the homes it gets compared to. In one Rosemount project discussed on the episode, the owners bought a roughly 3,300 square foot house on four to five acres in a neighborhood where comparable homes sold from about $1 million to $1.7 million.

Those comparables were bigger homes. To put real money into the house and refinance afterward without ending up underwater, the family needed the square footage to match. Skapar added about 1,400 square feet across two additions, bringing the house to about 4,700 square feet, opened up a kitchen that a covered porch had kept dark, and remodeled the rest of the house. The point was to put the house in the same category as everything around it.

When Remodeling the Space You Have Is Enough

Remodeling is enough when the house has the space but uses it badly. A Golden Valley homeowner had been told by another firm to add on and renovate the whole house. Once the remodeler walked it, the problem was clear: the primary bathroom was tiny and moldy, the closet sat out in the hallway, and the lower level entry from the garage ran into a dead end.

The house had been a flip, and the shortcuts showed in cut tile edges and clicking gray vinyl plank flooring. Skapar expanded the primary bathroom slightly into the bedroom and routed the closet through it, moved a hallway toilet behind the door for privacy, replaced a solid door with frosted glass to bring morning light into the hall, built a bench and drop zone mud room, and rebuilt a lower level bathroom where you had to climb past the toilet to reach the shower. A badly zoned basement HVAC setup was simplified rather than expanded. Three bathrooms changed and no square footage was added. Golden Valley has many homes of this age where layout, not size, is the real limit.

How Long Does a Remodel Take?

Plan on about two to four months of design and pre-construction before the first nail. The first month is the concept: a walkthrough, a conversation, and two or three drawings to react to. Around month two comes feasibility and the budget conversation. Pre-construction follows with selections, permits, bids, scheduling and the contract.

That front-loaded time is where the 300 or more decisions get made, from countertop edge profiles and cabinet door styles to hardware placement, tile edging and grout color. Someone has to make every one of them. A good design-build process puts those choices in front of the homeowner before demolition, so nothing has to be taken apart and rebuilt later. Construction itself on a project like the Golden Valley one runs about four months.

How Remodel Pricing Works

A trustworthy estimate starts with a range based on similar past projects, then sets a budgetary number within about 5%. Instead of a low base price with a list of add-ons, it covers the job actually expected to be built, and checks early numbers with the cabinet maker because cabinetry can move a budget more than anything else.

CJ Norman sees the same pattern in real estate: an agent can win a listing by promising $50,000 more and then have an uncomfortable conversation when the house sits. An honest number up front loses some projects and some listings, and CJ Norman and Katy Norman are fine with that. Along the way, related choices come up together, like refinishing floors across the whole main level while the kitchen is open, or replacing windows and siding at the same time so nothing gets taken apart twice.

Temporary Kitchen During a Remodel, or Move Out?

Moving out is the easiest way to live through a remodel, but renting another place adds to the cost. Both the Rosemount and Golden Valley families moved out because the work touched so many parts of the house that it went faster without people living in it.

When moving out is not practical, Skapar sets up a temporary kitchen, often in a basement bar area. For one kitchen project starting in November, the temporary kitchen went into a garage that stays above 50 degrees, with the refrigerator, a plug-in induction burner and countertops reused from the old kitchen. It also helps to treat the project as a chance to clear out 10 to 20 years of belongings first. Episode 24 of the show covers that process.

Does Remodeling Increase Home Value?

Remodeling usually adds value, but most projects do not pay for themselves right away. Because carpentry, plumbing and electrical labor cost so much, a remodel often costs more than it adds in immediate value. Over five to ten years of ownership, homeowners get a good portion of that money back.

Finishing an unfinished basement is the exception that can pay back sooner, because it adds finished square footage that was never there. If you are remodeling to sell soon, CJ Norman and Katy Norman lay out which projects tend to earn their cost in their home selling process guide.

Why Remodel Costs Have Doubled

Remodel costs have roughly doubled since COVID across cabinetry, plumbing, electrical and carpentry. A kitchen that used to cost about $125,000 now runs about $225,000, and footings that once cost $3,000 now cost about $6,000. Decks have climbed so far that nobody on the episode would put a number on them.

Small increases on every trade add up, so a project that looks modest at the start can grow quickly. Custom cabinetry costs more, but it lets every inch of a kitchen be designed around how the family uses it.

What to Check in a Spec Home

Spec homes can look finished in photos and still need fixes within a few years. Skapar was starting work on a five or six year old Edina spec home that already showed sagging concrete, a tilting front stoop, condensation from poorly insulated cantilevers, cracked painted cabinet frames and a quartzite backsplash with a seam cut right behind the range.

Builders of spec homes have to hit a price and keep moving, so small details get skipped. That does not make every spec home a bad buy, but it is a reason to look closely and inspect carefully. CJ Norman and Katy Norman cover spec homes, to-be-built homes and builder walkthroughs in their new construction buyer representation page.

Design Build vs. Hiring an Architect

Design build puts the designer and the builder at the same table from the first meeting, so costs are discussed while the project is being designed. Hiring an architect first is a valid route, but the plans then go out for bid, and the homeowner has to choose a builder on price alone. When the bids come in high, the design gets cut back until it only resembles what was hoped for.

The best first meeting includes both homeowners, the designer, the builder and the project manager. Projects stall when one decision maker is missing, because one person may want something the other has not said yet.

How to Choose a Remodeling Contractor

Choose the contractor you trust over the lowest bid. The single biggest takeaway from the episode is that a contractor relationship takes time to build, so if you already have one who has been fair and delivered what you needed, stay with them even at a 3% premium.

The cheaper option can end up far more expensive once the work is done wrong. This is Skapar's second appearance on the show. The first, Episode 19 on home remodeling, covers how Skapar approaches kitchens, bathrooms and basements. Families weighing a remodel against a bigger house can also start with CJ Norman and Katy Norman's page for growing families and move-up buyers.