Guide
Three ways to get the room you are out of, and they solve three different problems. A second story grows the house you live in. An ADU adds a separate dwelling on the same lot. Moving buys the space somewhere else and gives up the block. The comparison below is the one I run with families at the first walk.
I am Sebastian Moreno Rivera, the owner of Build And Decor Construction. I build two of the three, so weigh the page with that in mind. The third is sometimes the right answer, and I say so when it is.
A second story is new living space over the house you have. It shares the kitchen, the address and the utilities, and the new rooms count toward the main dwelling. An ADU is a separate dwelling with its own kitchen, bath and entrance, in the yard, over or in the garage, or attached with its own door. Moving is a sale, a purchase and a new loan, and a different street.
The second story is for the family that needs bedrooms, a second bath, an office or a primary suite connected to daily life, on a lot where the yard is spoken for or the setbacks leave nowhere to grow sideways. The ADU is for rent, a parent, an adult child, or a workspace that should stand on its own. Moving is for the family whose house is wrong, not just small, or whose lot cannot carry either of the first two.
A second story asks the lot for height, setbacks and floor area, and asks the house for a structure that can carry a new floor. Can your house carry a second story covers the second half. An ADU answers to its own set of rules, and a garage conversion gets a head start from the slab and the walls already standing; the ADU and garage conversion page covers that path. Moving asks nothing of the lot and everything of the market.
A second story puts the work over your head: a sealed barrier at the stair, a dedicated crew entry, loud weeks named in advance, or a rental for the duration. An ADU puts the work in the yard, and the house keeps its routine. Moving puts you in boxes, changes the school and the commute, and resets the loan.
Some lots support an addition and an ADU. Which comes first depends on where the family sleeps during the work and what the rent from a finished ADU would carry. The ground-floor version of the addition question is on the room additions page, which has its own section on addition or ADU.
The first on-site visit, which is free, reads the lot for both builds at once: the zoning envelope, the structure, the yard and the garage. You leave it knowing which of the three your lot allows and what each would ask, whether or not you build with me. For a second story, the feasibility read starts from your address and photos before anyone visits.
Send me your address and two or three photos of the house. I send back a feasibility read in writing: what the zoning allows above your roof, what the lot adds, what a house of its age and type usually needs to carry a new floor, and a simple massing sketch of the new floor on your house. I read every request myself.