Hello,
I have a 45' X 25' rancher located next to the Chesapeake Bay. I can only expand out the back or up. The houses in front on mine are on the water, each house in the community requires a 30' seperation between each house. Many of the waterfront houses are being torn down and new larger homes are being built, in addition many of the houses are beginning to put trees as barriers which will further restrict my bay views for my one story house. In the next year we will need to add "at least" 1000 sq ft to our house. We have been discussing either adding a nice front porch and expanding out the back with a master bedroom/bath and new kitchen or adding a second and third story that would consist of a sitting area, two bedrooms and a bath on the second floor and a master bedroom and bath on the third with two full size porches on the front of the house. I believe my exsisting foundation can support the additional floors and the new stairs could probably be located next to the front door which is now a bedroom. My question is, should I keep it simple and just go with the one story bungalow style or should I try to maximize my view of the Chesapeake Bay by adding two more floors. The third floor master suite would not have to be completed right away and the kitchen could remain as is.
Which option should I go with? Screw the view and keep it on one story or maximize the view? I've heard differing opinions concerning cost, some say the one story would be less expensive and others say adding a second story is cheaper. I know without knowing all the details of the house this question is very difficult to answer.
Sorry for the dissertation!

This may be irrelevant but.....I designed my own plan to tear down half our house & re-build w/2 story. I thought I knew what I needed about zoning so I failed to read all of it carefully many times over.

Turns out there is a "50% renovation clause" that I didn't know about. Either by dollars or Sq Ft if you pass this 50% hurdle you may have to retro-actively upgrade entire property to current zoning stds. & bldg. codes. (IF they try to change setbacks on you try to find original plat info and you might be able to make a case for them not being able to make changes from how land was originally platted)

In my case this would have meant putting in fire sprinkler system which would have added $20K. Also would have had to tear huge chunk of existing garage down and God knows what else.

I was able to lie cheat & steal my way to just squeak under this 50% thing. But still has added huge costs & delays & not done yet.

Zoning. Zoning. Zoning!

Maybe your budget allows you to not worry about it but unfortunenatly not for me! Good luck...did I mention to check zoning FIRST.