We are looking at expanding our living space in our home here in west central Florida and we are faced with two main options.... adding on to our home following the roof line and construction of the house, or closing in the two car garage, making it living space and adding a detacted garage. We're not sure of the advantages either way so we thought we'd pop it out here for the experts to chime in :O)
The house is basically a simple gable roof line runnin parallel with the road with an "L shape where the small leg of the "L" is the two car garage facing forward on the right side of the house. We were considering extending the gable towards the right, past the garage and make the new rooms in this area. This would just continue the main gable roof further and since the garage roof intersects the front of the existing gable it shouldn't impact the garage area at all. This also leaves the master bathroom connections where they are so there should be no plumbing impact.
The second option is to block in the front garage door and turn the garage into additional living space. Then build a detacted garage to the right of the existing garage and since it's detacted, wouldn't impact the central house. One consideration here is the existing garage floor is dropped lower then the rest of the house (about 6") and we're conserned if we just block in the front garage door that there might be a moisture issue in the garage (we're thinking the walls would have to be sealed good). Plus the garage walls are block so there isn't really any insullation in there.
We're a little leaning towards the extension of the main house but we figured we're not experts so thought there might be something we're overlooking.
Thanks for your assistance!