What to Consider Before Adding a Master Suite to Your Home

Adding a Master Suite to Your Home Do you ever feel like you just don’t have enough room in your master bedroom? Are your closets too small and you don’t really have any place to just sit and relax for a while? If this is the case, you might be considering turning your master bedroom into a master suite.

Master suite additions have become quite popular over the past few years. While they don’t have the best return on investment, typically only recouping 57%-64% of the cost of the project, homeowners who have master suites added to their homes typically get a huge amount of personal enjoyment out of it, so it could very well be a worthwhile project if you’re planning on staying in your home for a while.

The cost of adding a master suite can easily cost over $100,000, but the exact price will largely depend on what features you want it to have and whether it’s going to be on the first floor of your home or on a second story. To keep costs down, it’s best to take advantage of as much existing space in your home as possible, like unused bedrooms or underutilized attic or basement space. But if you need to expand outward or upward, it’s a lot simpler and less expensive to expand on a lower level than it is to add on to a second story.

In many cases, a master suite is a lot like a small, but luxurious, apartment or hotel room. In addition to having a space for a bed, they also typically have a walk-in closet and an en suite bathroom with dual sinks. However, many people also like to have features like radiant floor heating, a private patio or balcony, a luxurious bathtub, sitting areas, fireplaces, and built-in shelving in their master suites.

Before you get too carried away with planning the master suite of your dreams, talk to some contractors to get some estimates and to see if they have any feedback about your ideas. They may be able to give you some suggestions that would make your vision more practical to achieve. For example, if you have big plans for your en suite bathroom, they might suggest keeping it close to your existing plumbing since it’s much more expensive to run plumbing lines to a new area of the house. A contractor will also alert you to any potential problems you might encounter, such as zoning regulations

If it’s necessary to build an addition for your master suite, it’s important to remember that the cost of actually building your master suite is just one cost you’ll have to plan for. When you add on to your home, your energy bills will go up since there’s more space in your home to heat and power. It’s also possible that expanding your home will also increase your property taxes. Building an addition will also have an impact on the appearance of your home and you may end up wanting to take on extra projects to make the exterior appear more cohesive. For example, if you have older windows in the rest of your home, but have new vinyl windows in the new area, you might want to replace your old windows with vinyl replacement windows so your home will have a more uniform look.

Planning the master suite of your dreams can be a little overwhelming at first, but if you talk to anyone who has been through the process, they’ll probably tell you it’s worth it in the end. Just like you would with any other home renovation project, make sure to do plenty of research before you get started to avoid headaches and frustration.