Second-Story Addition in Palo Alto

The family loved their single-story Palo Alto home and had no interest in leaving it. They just wanted it back. Between two kids, a home office that had taken over the dining table, and a primary bedroom that had started to feel more like a hallway than a retreat, the ground floor had stopped feeling like theirs.

Rather than expand the footprint into an already-tight backyard, we built up: a new second story over the existing garage, sized to just under 700 sq ft. It’s a self-contained retreat: a master bedroom and spa-style bath, a small kitchen for morning coffee without a trip downstairs, and a real office with a door that actually closes.

Building over an existing garage meant unusually careful structural work before a single wall went up: new footings, new framing to carry the load, all while keeping the family living normally below. We ran the entire project with weekly walkthroughs so the family always knew exactly what was happening over their heads, literally.

Nine months later, the ground floor is entirely theirs and the kids’ again, and the new upstairs feels less like an addition and more like the reason the rest of the house finally makes sense.