Home Additions: Don't Relocate - Renovate!
With the current housing market in turmoil, many people are deciding not to sell. What's the answer then, if you've got an expanding family or you simply need more room? If you can't afford a vacation home, you might think about expanding your current one.
A Home Addition can sound really scary. Adding on to your home doesn't always mean ripping off your roof and adding a whole 2nd floor. A home addition company might simply add on a garage, a back porch, or an extra bathroom which could really make a difference in your living situation.
Here are some useful tips, just in case you're planning to hire a home addition contractor, to make sure every goes right:
Home Additions - Inspect It
If you're going to make even minor wall changes to your house, please (please, please!) bring in a structural engineer. Anytime you're going to knock out a wall, it could affect the integrity of the building. A general contractor may not completely understand the engineering of every home structure and could give bad advice. It may sound "expensive" to hire a structural engineer, but imagine how more you'd spend if a side of your home fell off...
Get your permits. Nothing is more obvious than a home addition, no matter how small or insignificant. Even if you get away with doing the work without a permit, a homeowner is going to notice part of the house is new. Don't get caught having to pay fines, penalties, and maybe even pay to have the work removed and re-done after an inspection.
Home Additions - Plan It
If you're adding to your home, by expanding out or up, it's important to also talk with an architect or designer. Why? Because you really don't want your add-on to look like it was added on. You want it to blend seamlessly into your neighborhood background. Are all the homes around your's single-story, two-bedroom bungalows? If you plop a 2nd floor on, with dormers, and cozy third floor attic, it could look out of place. That's fine if you're going to stay in the home forever, but you could have a problem selling the eyesore down the road. To make sure your addition works, talk with a designer who can help give you what you want without sacrificing the look and value of the house.
Also, homes were built in specific areas of the country in specific eras. Many times, an architect or inspector will be able to review your home plans and your original blueprints to determine if your house can support the extra weight of a 2nd floor. The structure of your house might not be capable to handling an addition -- homes originally built with 2nd floors have different framing, so you want to make sure your home can handle it.
Your current heating and cooling ducts and unit are set up for the current number of rooms in your home. Adding even a sunroom or extra bathroom could throw things off. Consult an HVAC company to inspect your air flow requirements with an addition room or floor.
Make sure your designer takes in all aspects of the other homes in your neighborhood: doors, windows, paint, siding, roofs, and elevation. These should all work with the architecture of the home and the surrounding area.
Home Additions - Build It
Prepare for the major disruption of having workers, equipment, and materials (as well as dust, debris, and possible damage) that will be invading your house. On a floor addition, you'll have to relocate to other living quarters, but you might be able to work around a bedroom addition or having your kitchen expanded.
Take plenty of pictures and monitor the work. Keep track of all the details in case there are problems or disputes down the road (and, also, to remember the experience.)
Timothy Clark is the Marketing Director for
http://www.constructiondeal.com/showJobCategory.pub?categoryId=11&rid=19 - a handy & Free online resource for matching Contractors to Homeowners who have building, remodeling, or home repair projects.
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Tom Cruise, Paramount And Hollywood Powers Shift, And Now Hedge Funds
Until the 1950s, Hollywood was controlled by seven major motion picture studios. More importantly it was controlled by moguls, all of whom were men they of eastern European descent, who ruled the studio in the same way that the kings of their previous countries ruled the peasants. Creative control belonged to the mogul, while the money was always controlled by the New York bankers, the so-called Suits.
This power alignment began with the beginning of Hollywood prior to 1920, and continued for 40 plus years. What held it intact was the caste system, whereby the stars were controlled by individual studios. They were paid on a yearly basis, and had no say whatsoever in the movies they would appear in. In essence they were slaves to the system, not very different from how baseball players were handled until the Supreme Court outlawed career-long captive players.
The Hollywood caste system began to crack in the 1950s, when Kirk Douglas, the father of Michael Douglas went independent, and formed one of the first independent film companies called Bryna, for his mother. They produced the Vikings, Spartacus, and Seven Days in May. The so called Studio system was now dead. Power shifted to the individual actors, who became BRAND NAMES in their own right.
Two developments began in the 1960s. The Hollywood studios would be taken over by corporations, and then reacquired by giant multinational corporations seeking world-wide influence. The second development was that the stars began to exercise their power. Giant multinationals like Sony, Newscorp, and Viacom hated the fact that stars had so much power. In the last ten years, A-List actors like Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp, and Robert Redford started to receive profit participations, which the studios only gave begrudgingly.
At first it didnt matter because Hollywood accounting is such that somehow the studios could always show a loss on the movie. The stars got wise to that very quickly, and started taking front end participations, a percentage of the ticket when movie goers bought their tickets. In my 35 years on Wall Street, I participated in financing many movies, and I have to tell you that nobody ever made money on the backend. No matter how big the movie, somehow the movie always lost money when it came to the backend participations.
We have now reached a point where the giant multinationals that control media on a world wide basis are fed up with what they are putting up with on behalf of brand name stars. Mel Gibson as you know has run into trouble on the West Coast with his drinking, and purported anti-Semitic remarks resulting in Disney canceling a Holocaust series with Gibsons production company.
Now Tom Cruise has had a falling out with Sumner Redstone, and Viacom. Publicly Redstone has stated he doesnt like some of Cruises actions in the last year. This doesnt make sense. Normally when a studio breaks with a star, there is no public statement. None is required to be given, and they just part ways. This is more personal.
It is rumored that Viacom had offered Cruise a $2 million production deal, down from $4 million in the previous deal, plus a $6 million fund for the development of movie projects. Heres the real deal. Tom Cruise did Mission Impossible III for Viacom, the movie grosses near $400 million world-wide. Cruise had negotiated as a fee, 25% of Viacoms gross revenue on the movie.
This is the way it works. The movie does $400 million. The theaters get half, and Viacom gets half, thats $200 million apiece. Cruise gets 25% of Viacoms half, thats $50 million. In the end Viacom gets $150 million, and Cruise gets $50 million. Sounds great for Viacom doesnt it. Not really, Viacom must pay for the movie which had to be $150 million plus advertising. Viacom gets zero, and Cruise still gets $50 million. This is why Sumner Redstone of Viacom is annoyed, and Cruise is sitting on top of the world.
In the end Redstone will last laugh, why you ask? Theres still Hollywood accounting to deal with. Remember that all the original Hollywood studios were sold off into the hands of multinational corporations (MNCs). Do you really think the MNCs bought the studios for the theater gross? Absolutely not. In reality movie ticket sales represent a third of a movies earnings power. Viacom can lose money on a picture, and still make a fortune on DVD sales (a third), and future television and cable rights (a third).
The MNCs have never shared profits on these other two-thirds of the revenue, and they never will. They refuse to even discuss it, and the numbers are buried deep in the corporations financial statements. They are never broken out, and they are kept secret. Viacom has made, and will make hundreds of millions of dollars on Mission Impossible III.
Redstone got fed up and threw Cruise off the lot. There are now statements being made by Cruises production partner Paula Wagner. She says that Cruise is raising $200 million from hedge funds to fund Cruises future projects. Wait until these Wall Street hedge fund types learn about Hollywood accounting. They are going to lose their shirts funding movies. This is not an industry that Wall Street should want to get involved with. Losing your shirt is one thing, but not even knowing that you have lost it until you are standing naked in the street is quite another.
Richard Stoyecks background includes being a limited partner at Bear Stearns, Senior VP at Lehman Brothers, Kuhn Loeb, Arthur Andersen, and KPMG. Educated at Pace University, NYU, and Harvard University, today he runs Rockefeller Capital Partners and
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