THE CHEAP SPACE FAIRY TALE
  nce upon a time there was a very nice couple (the Smiths) who wanted to build a new home. They had never done such a thing before so they were excited and nervous at the same time.
One day Mr. Smith was talking to a coworker who told him a very wonderful story about his brother's wife's cousin's great niece on his father's side who built a house with a free basement and a free bonus room over the garage! How exciting! thought Mr. Smith.
When the Smiths started designing their new home, they made a point to tell their architect they wanted a free basement and a free bonus room over their garage too! But the wicked, evil, old architect told them this was only a fairytale and that "cheap space" only happens on the other side of the rainbow in La-La Land, not in America. So the Smiths, sad but wiser, paid the true cost for designing and building their home and lived happily ever after.
--author unknown |
THE MYTH ABOUT "BONUS ROOMS" + OTHER "CHEAP" SPACE
Unfortunately for all of us, this Cheap Space Fairy Tale is a popular story; we hear versions of it all the time! "...We want a basement because we hear it's free space," or "...We want to extend these walls up just a bit over the garage for a Bonus Room."
 Brace yourself! The wicked, evil old designer is going to burst your bubble! Let's take, for example, the "Bonus Room." The myth says that you can have a room above your garage for next to nothing. Consider, for a moment, a regular, frame garage with a truss roof. To add a room above this garage, you must do the following:
• Design and draft the room. Your designer will have to determine the height of the walls, the size and shape of any windows and skylights, the electrical, plumbing, (if any) heating, insulation and finishes (drywall, paint, floor covering, lights, etc). The plans will then be drafted and specs will be drawn up, just as they would for any other room of the home!
• In addition to the materials for the basic garage, you'll need to buy materials for: the extra walls, floor, insulation, outside and inside finishes, windows, stairs (figure 100sf of space for the stairs alone) a source of heating a cooling, interior finishes, and labor to complete the structure. How can all this possibly be free?
Bathrooms and kitchens are the expensive rooms because of all of the extra plumbing fixtures and appliances, counters, cabinets, vanities, etc. Bedrooms are less expensive because they are simpler. A "Bonus Room" fits in the category of a bedroom when it comes to finishes and amenities (and costs).
Adding a Bonus Room above your garage and leaving it unfinished will save you the cost of the interior finish materials and labor, but you still have the materials and labor for the basic structure and the design/drafting costs. This is a good way to add space later with less cost up front, but it's certainly not "cheap" or "free."
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