An addition is the answer when you like the house, the street and the schools, and the house is simply a room short. Instead of moving, you build the missing room onto the house you have: a family room off the back, a bedroom and bath for a parent, more floor for a cramped kitchen, or a whole second floor.
JK General Contractor has built in Northern Virginia since 2003, from a shop on Gum Spring Road in Chantilly. One project manager is your contact on an addition from the first meeting to the walkthrough at the end.
Additions we build
- Room additions: a family room, bedroom or office on new footings, opened to the house where the two meet
- In-law suites: a bedroom with its own bath and a place to sit, for a parent or another relative who lives with you
- Bump-outs: a small addition that makes one room bigger instead of adding a new one, such as a kitchen, a dining room or a primary bedroom
- Second-story additions: a new floor over part or all of the house, built to an engineered design
- Four-season rooms: heated and cooled rooms built for daylight, with a page of their own, sunrooms
How we build an addition
Design and price. We meet at the house, look at the lot and the spot where the new room will join the old one, and settle the size and the layout with you. You get the plan and one firm price in writing, not a range, before the engineering starts.
Engineering and permit. The engineering goes into the drawings the county reviews. A second-story addition is engineered because it sets a new floor on walls and footings that were built to carry a roof, not another story. Once the drawings are done, the building permit application goes to the county under our name, and we book each inspection as the work reaches it.
Footings. The building code sets footings below the frost line so freezing ground does not lift them, and the county inspects the footings before any concrete goes in. Our concrete comes from Capitol Concrete, the supply company JK started when getting concrete on the days his jobs needed it became a problem, so pour days follow our schedule.
Roof and walls. Where the new roof meets the house, it is tied in and flashed. Flashing is the metal that sheds water where two surfaces meet; without it, rain running down the old wall can work its way behind the new one and rot the framing out of sight. We match the siding, trim, windows and roofing to the house.
Plumbing, wiring, heating and cooling. That work is done by licensed trades holding permits in their own names, and we fit their work and their inspections into the job's schedule.
Size is not a licensing question for us. JK General Contractor holds a Virginia Class A license, No. 2705135143, the class with no cap on the value of a single job, so a second story is as much within our license as a bump-out.
Which addition fits?
| Addition | What it adds | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Room addition | A new room beside the house | Joins the house through an opening in an outside wall |
| In-law suite | A bedroom and bath for a relative | A kitchen in the suite depends on county zoning |
| Bump-out | More floor in one room | Small, but still an addition: designed, permitted and inspected |
| Second story | A new floor over the house | Engineered |
| Four-season room | A heated and cooled room built for daylight | Covered on its own page, sunrooms |
Is the house a room short?
Say what the extra room would be for, and we will set a time to walk the lot with you.
Where We Build Home Additions
For an addition, we draw the plans, file the building permit with Loudoun, Fairfax or Prince William County, whichever one your house is in, and book each inspection from the footings to the final one. If your neighborhood answers to an architectural review board, we also prepare the package it reviews: drawings, samples and product sheets.
How much does a home addition cost?
It depends on the addition. Once we have walked the lot and settled the design with you, the price comes as one firm number in writing. These are the things that move it:
- Size and use: the floor area, and whether the room holds plumbing, such as a bath
- One story or two: a second story is engineered
- The footings: how many the design needs, and what the soil and the slope of the lot call for
- The tie-in: how much of the outside wall is opened, and how the new roof lines meet the old ones
- Matching: the siding, trim, windows and roofing it takes to match the house
- Heating and cooling: whether the existing system can serve the new room or it needs equipment of its own
- Finishes: the floors, doors, trim, lighting and fixtures you choose
- Approvals: the engineering, the county permit and what the review board asks for
Should we add on or renovate the rooms we have?
Add on when the house is short a room; renovate when the rooms are there but the wrong size or in the wrong place. A renovation works inside the walls you already have, so it needs no new footings or roof, and it may be all the house needs. The two also combine: a bump-out can give a kitchen more floor, and a kitchen remodel fills it.
Whether a finished basement could hold the room instead is weighed on our home remodeling page.
What decides where an addition can go?
The county's zoning rules come first, starting with the setbacks: the distance a building has to keep from the lot lines.
The neighborhood can add rules of its own. In Brambleton, and in much of Ashburn, an addition also goes before the community's architectural review board, because it changes the outside of the house, and it needs the board's approval as well as the county permit. A board keeps its own meeting calendar, and its approval can come after the county's permit is ready, so the board's package is worth starting early.
Would a porch fit better than an addition?
If the room you want is for warm evenings more than everyday living, price a porch before an addition. A screened porch is a roofed room with fiberglass screens, and a three-season room closes the openings with window panels for use from spring through fall. Neither one is heated and cooled with the house; an addition is.
