A home addition is half a renovation and half a new build — and twice the choreography of either. You are tying new structure into an existing house that has settled, expanded, and contracted for decades. The work that does not show is what determines whether the addition reads as part of the house in ten years, or as something stuck on the back.
We have learned that the early phases — design, zoning, structural — are the ones that determine whether the project goes well. We invest the time there, and the construction phase rewards us for it.