Has anyone done a full dormer on their cape? Is it possible to get 4 reasonably sized BRs on the top floor? Or just 3?
We have a 4BR, 2 bath. 2 BR up (good sized rooms) w/ a full bath (partial dormer) and 2 BR down. Ideally we'd like to get 4 BR up - but we'll settle for 3
We're not ready for a few years ($$$), but I'm curious to see what we can do!!
mlp924
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Re: Dormered cape, anyone?
My mom lives in a fully dormered cape and yes it is possible! She has a full bath, 2 really big rooms and 2 medium sized rooms. Its a great thing to do. You can also add on a lot more closet space.
MarcellaBella
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Re: Dormered cape, anyone?
It is DEF possible to do!!!
OctBride03
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Re: Dormered cape, anyone?
We have a partial dormered cape (one section of house is NOT dormered, stupid I know) with 3 nice sized bedrooms and a full bath. Eventually we want to dormer out the rest and that will give us a nice 4th bedroom..
Def. can be done!
Jenn P
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Re: Dormered cape, anyone?
I'm sorry, I'm confused- Did you want 4 bedrooms just on the top floor, or in the whole house? The latter is definitely possible, the former would be very, very tight.
Suzanne
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Re: Dormered cape, anyone?
My parents have a A line Cape and they had the one big bedroom upstairs, well they dormered and instead of 4 bedrooms they made 3 bedrooms (one of which is a HUGE master bedroom, i mean my moms CAL. King looks small in the room) and 1 bathroom almost comparable in size to the other 2 bedrooms.. So yes you can definatly make 4 bedrooms upstairs.
Kathi
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Re: Dormered cape, anyone?
YAY! Thanks, ladies!! I kinda figured it *should* be possible.
Jenn: I already have 4 BRs (2 up, 2 down). My ideal sitch would be to have all 4 BRs up and expand our kitchen and living/family rooms.
Jenn P
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Re: Dormered cape, anyone?
Kathi-Just curious because I'm facing a similar decision-
Are you blowing out the roof totally so that from the outside, it would almost look like a colonial, or will the second floor still have an angular ceiling?
Kathi
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Re: Dormered cape, anyone?
Hi Jenn-
No more angled ceilings!!! I HATE them!!! I'm 5'11', Steve's 6'0' and it looks like Sean's gonna be a tall one! We also have an attached oversized 1 car garage that we plan to build over.
Have you gotten any estimates yet? Is it nauseatingly expensive? I'm almost afraid to find out what my 'dream' house would cost!
Jenn P
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Re: Dormered cape, anyone?
Ok, I did misunderstand. With the flat, full blown out roof you can certainly get the 4 bedrooms you want.
We have a cape that is completely unfinished on the second floor. (I know, I didn't think there were any of those left either.) DH does siding and roofing on the side with my father in law so labor wise we only have to pay for the framing work. We want the full blow out too and hope to do it in 2005.
I have a friend with a cape in Hicksville who is getting what it sounds like you want right now. Reframe for a full dormer, new roof, new siding, obviously all the sheetrock work, and I think they're even painting-88k. This was somewhere in the middle of the range of estimates he got. He did a cash out refinance and it killed the poor guy because he went from a 15 year mortgage to a 30 but he really, really wanted the space.
This is just my humble opinion but I wouldn't put that kind of money into a house unless I was as sure as possible that I would stay there for a very long time. Depending on a number of factors, ie. location, you just wouldn't get that back in resale.
Anyway, is that number what you were thinking?
Kathi
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Re: Dormered cape, anyone?
Thanks, Jenn. It's definitely in the ballpark. We figured about 75K. I have a few 'connections' in my RE biz, but most of them are licensed in NYC.
We're not ready until at least 2006. I agree with you with respect to the $$ investment. We'll definitely consider all of our options when the time comes!!
