Home Additions and New Construction

Adding to a house is the only remodel that changes its footprint, and it is the one where the planning matters more than the finishes. Tiger’s Solution LLC builds home additions in Boonsboro, MD and across Washington County: sunrooms and four-season rooms, covered porches, room additions and new structures built from the footing up. The projects on this page include a brick ranch that went from a concrete stoop to a full covered front porch, and a rear sunroom built off an existing wall and tied into the roof line. What both have in common is that the new part reads as though it was always there, which is the hardest part of an addition and the part homeowners notice first.

Four things decide an addition before anything is drawn.

Where it can go. Setbacks, lot lines, septic and well locations, easements and grade all limit where new structure is allowed. This is a county and property question, not a design one, and it comes first.

What it sits on. A footing and foundation, a slab, or piers. Frost depth, soil and how the new foundation meets the existing one all get decided here.

How it ties in. The connection between old and new is where additions succeed or fail: the roof line, the wall it attaches to, how water is kept out of that joint, and whether the floor levels line up.

What it does. A three-season porch, a heated room and a full room addition with plumbing are three different builds. The finish looks similar in photographs. The structure, insulation and permitting are not.

This is the most requested category, and the terms get used loosely, so it is worth separating them.

A covered porch is roofed but open. It extends the season you can use the outside of your house and changes the front elevation more than almost any other project. The porch shown on this page replaced a small concrete stoop with a full-width covered porch, columns, railing and steps.

A three-season room is enclosed with windows but not fully conditioned. It is bright, cheaper than a full addition, and honest about what it is: unusable during the coldest weeks.

A four-season room is insulated and conditioned to the same standard as the rest of the house. It costs more because it is a genuine addition rather than an enclosure, and it counts as living space.

Choosing between them is a budget and usage decision, and it should be made before framing rather than during.

A room addition adds conditioned square footage: a bedroom, a family room, an expanded kitchen, a first-floor bathroom for someone who should not be using stairs.

These involve the full sequence. Footings and foundation, framing, roof, exterior envelope, windows and doors, insulation, then interior finish. They also involve inspections at several stages, which sets the pace regardless of how fast anyone works.

Bump-outs are the smaller cousin and are worth mentioning because they are underused. Not all home additions need to be large: extending a room by a few feet can resolve a layout problem that a homeowner assumed required a full addition.

We also build standalone structures, including garages and outbuildings.

• Covered porches and porch replacement
• Sunrooms and three-season room construction
• Four-season and conditioned room additions
• Room additions and bump-outs
• Foundations, footings and piers
• Framing, roof framing and roof tie-ins
• Exterior siding, trim, soffit and fascia on new structure
• Window and exterior door installation
• Insulation and interior finish on the new space
• Flooring, trim and paint in the finished addition
• Standalone structures, garages and outbuildings
• Coordination with permitting and inspections

The technical work keeps an addition standing. The matching work is what stops it looking bolted on.

Roof pitch is the first tell. A new roof at a different pitch from the original reads wrong from across the street, even to people who could not say why.

Siding and trim are the second. Exact matches to weathered siding are rarely possible, because colour fades and profiles change. The realistic approaches are to match as closely as available and accept a slight difference, to re-side a whole elevation so the transition falls at a corner, or to treat the addition as a deliberate accent. The wrong approach is a near-match on the same plane as the original, where the eye lands straight on the seam.

Window proportion is the third and the one most often missed. Matching the shape and grid pattern of the existing windows does more for coherence than matching the exact brand.

Then there is the ground. A new structure changes where water goes. Gutters, downspouts and grade all have to be reworked so the addition does not send water back at the house.

Additions are permitted work. In Washington County that means plans, review and inspections at defined stages, typically including footings before concrete and framing before it is covered.

This has two practical consequences. The schedule includes waiting that nobody controls, and the sequence is not negotiable: you cannot cover framing that has not been inspected. Anyone who tells you otherwise is planning to do it twice.

We will be clear in the written scope about which permitting and coordination steps we handle and which sit with you or with a designer or engineer. Architectural and engineering services are separate disciplines, and we will say so rather than implying we provide them.

Home additions here are shaped by the lot before anything else, and lots around Boonsboro, Keedysville and Sharpsburg vary enormously. Some are generous and flat, and an addition is straightforward. Others slope hard, sit close to a line, or carry a septic field exactly where the obvious extension would go. Knowing that before you fall in love with a plan saves a great deal.

Older houses here bring their own considerations. Foundations of stone or block, floor levels that have settled, and roof structures built to older standards all affect how a new section ties in.

The local weather load matters as well. Snow, wind off the mountain and freeze-thaw all argue for footings at proper depth and a roof tie-in detailed to shed water rather than to look neat on paper.