Home Renovations

Has your family recently expanded? Perhaps you’re just getting tired of struggling to fit everyone around the table in a cramped dining room or kitchen. Maybe you’ve got grand plans for a new home office or rec room so you can indulge in your hobbies or work from home in comfort.

Wiggins Construction Company of North Florida can give you the extra space you need, without you needing to leave the home that you love. We’re award-winning experts in room additions and home renovations.

So, if you are considering adding a new room to your home in North Florida, here are some factors to consider.

Lock Down Your Key Objectives

The first step in planning a home renovation or room addition is to isolate exactly what you want to achieve.

Having a firm idea of what your key objectives are right at the beginning of the project allows you to relate your other decisions back to those objectives later, making sure you stay on track.

Being able to articulate exactly what you want to achieve with your project also makes it easier for you to communicate those ideas with your builder. Home renovations are always easier when everyone is on the same page.

Have an In-Depth Understanding of Your Finances

Before starting any home renovation or room addition project, it is incredibly important that you have a firm grip on your finances. If you’re financing the project yourself, take stock of your assets, such as savings or any investments that can easily be liquidated. If you’re planning on taking out a home improvement loan, you’ll want to consider the equity in your home, your current credit rating, and the number of monthly payments you make on existing lines of credit.

A higher credit score and equity coupled with lower monthly repayments makes you far more likely to be successful in applying for a loan or second mortgage. It’s always worth having some breathing room in your budget to accommodate sudden costs that often crop up during a project.

Check Your Property Restrictions

Before talking to a builder about your planned room addition or home renovations, it’s always a good idea to check the legal restrictions and building codes that govern what can be built on your property.

Factors to take into account include the setback restrictions that govern how close a structure can be built to property lines, building height restrictions, building area ratios, design covenants, and historic-district preservation ordinances.

If your project violates a certain legal restriction or building code, you can always apply for special permission to disregard a particular ordinance, known as a variance.

Crunch the Numbers

As a rule, homeowners tend to underestimate construction costs. After getting quotes for the work you want to be done, it’s best to run the numbers and make sure you’re budget can accommodate the cost. A good rule of thumb is to add around 10 or 20 percent to any estimate to give you a buffer against unforeseen costs and delays.

Work With the Right People

Your home is one of the most important things in you and your family’s life, so it’s always worth putting in the extra time to find a builder you can trust. Always take the time to interview and get estimates from a range of builders.

When picking a builder to interview, get recommendations for people who have had similar work done. Also, look for building companies that have been recognized with awards by leading industry bodies. At Wiggins Construction Company, we have been awarded Clay County Builder of the Year in 2018 and 2019.

Use To-Scale Furniture Layouts

Once you have your 2D plans, you can use them to plan out how you are going to furnish your new room addition or renovation. It’s simple enough to make to-scale cutouts of the furniture you want and move them around to get your perfect layout.

Doing this can also help you plan where to put electrical outlets and phone jacks and cable hookups so they sync up with your furniture.

Visualize the Space in 3D

Sometimes it can be hard to properly visualize a renovation or addition to your house from a 2D design. Most reputable builders will be able to offer you a  3-D drawing that shows how room or renovation will appear when built.

Wiggins Construction Company of North Florida makes use of AutoCAD to help our customers visualize their project before building starts.

Crunch Those Numbers Again

You’ve probably heard the builder maxim of ‘measure twice, cut once.’ Well, this is the financial version of that. Once you have your designs, quotes, and a builder that you trust lined up, go over the numbers once again. Finding out that you need a little extra in your budget before work has begun is far more preferable than finding out that your finances are getting stretched midway through the project.

Call Us Today

You want to remain in your house, but it seems to be getting smaller as your children grow bigger. Wiggins Construction Company of North Florida can solve that problem with room additions in Jacksonville, FL. Ask our contractor to give your family the space you need by adding another bedroom or bathroom. We come to your house for a free consultation, complete with AutoCAD. Call us to schedule a free estimate.

Our new home builders provide high-quality construction service that extends to second-story additions and detached garages. We offer you the benefits of more than 35 years of experience as one of the best home contractors in Clay County.

We are licensed and certified by the state of Florida and the winners of the 2018 and 2019 Clay County Homebuilders of the Year award.