If you are considering a home addition, the following tips will help your addition blend in with the original structure:

• Consider the era your home was built in. If you have a Victorian home with gables, bay windows, and other period architectural elements, make sure your addition has those things as well in order to make the addition blend seamlessly into your original home.


• Consider the neighboring homes as well. If you live in an area that is mostly one-story homes, your house may look out of place if you put a second story on it. Instead, consider an addition to the back, or bump out the family room or other areas of the home to make sure it blends in not only with your structure, but with the surrounding ones as well.


• Get 3D drawings. It can be hard to picture what your finished addition will look like, so get 3D renderings from your contractor. This will help you to better picture the addition and ensure that it blends in with your existing structure as well.


• Add the same exterior elements. If your original structure is brick, don't put vinyl siding on your addition. Try to add as many of the same exterior elements. For example, if you have shutters on all of your windows, add shutters to the windows of your addition as well. Try and keep windows and doors the same size and color, as well as other exterior elements, and your addition will blend in nicely.


• Blend in the inside of your home as well. You want your addition to blend in with the rest of your home structurally on the inside as well. So if you have crown molding in your original structure, keep it in your addition as well. If your ceilings are 8 feet in your original structure, make them the same in your addition (unless you are planning on bumping up your original ceilings later on).


• Don't overlook little things. Lighting, hardware, heating vents, doors and doorknobs, and trim are all things you should keep the same as your original structure that will help your addition blend in better.


• Update your original structure. Another way you can help your addition to blend in is to update your original structure as well. You want it to be difficult to distinguish where the original structure begins and ends, and sometimes this means new siding, doors, or windows for your original structure.