Ideas for Expanding Your House

Guest Quarters

• Living in a popular city and having the type of personality that people like to be around often leads to having frequent house guests. If your home is located on a large lot, you can expand the home and create guest quarters. The expansion can be attached to the existing structure, or you can create a connecting corridor and decorate it like a long sunroom. Design the guest quarters as a suite with a bedroom, sitting area and small dining area. Add a bathroom and even a small, studio-style kitchenette with a two-burner stove top and small refrigerator. If you have kids in college, the guest quarters can become their lodging space when they come home for holidays and summer.

Studio

• If the smell of fresh, oil-based paint on canvass or of wood shavings from a circular saw is calling you, a studio will make a fine addition to your home. You can finally explore your artsy side and have a private studio to create a masterpiece. Those who work with wood can have space to set up equipment to show off their artistry with woodworking and furniture making, or to create works with metal. Since the primary need is space, the costs incurred will be lower; a bathroom, plumbing and heat will be the biggest expenses. The studio could be a shared space for partners so each can explore and develop their creative gifts and talents. If there's an aspiring musician in the house, you can design the expansion as a recording studio.

Man Cave

• Combine a flat-screen television, poker table, refrigerator, bar, kegerator, pool table and a leather sofa, and what do you have? A man cave. What man wouldn't say yes to that. If he's already into home improvement, that will really help in lowering the expansion costs. Let him roll up his sleeves and show off his handiwork to shave expenditures on painting, flooring, and hanging drywall. Postconstruction, the major expenditures will involve man's best nonhuman friend: electronics.

Exercise Room and Spa

• Imagine arriving home after hours in traffic and a hard day at work, but there's a smile on your face. Why? Because you know that your own private at-home spa and exercise room awaits you. Include a Jacuzzi with multiple jets to grab every cramp and tightened muscle and smooth them away. Make the room minimalist in design, with sleek, smooth lines, and void of excessive ornamentation. Use clean and light colors, in shades of cream, sage and pale blue. Place a glass-enclosed walk-in shower stall big enough for two. Install dual overhead shower jets and side jets on the three walls opposite the glass door. Design a well-equipped exercise room with a stationary bike, weights and treadmill. Carpet the floor and include a mirrored-wall section. Mount a flat-screen television on the wall to keep yourself entertained. An at-home exercise room and spa will pay off in benefits for your mind, body and soul.