They did not move.They built a second storeyon the house they had.
A Lakewood pop-top: the roof came off a brick ranch, a full floor went on, and the family kept every square foot of their garden.
The cheapest land in Denver is the air above your house.
This Lakewood home was a brick ranch with a low roof, a cramped upper half-storey and no room left to grow sideways. Rather than move, the owners built up: the roof came off, a full second storey went on over the existing walls, and the ground floor was reworked underneath it.
A pop-top is the one addition that costs you nothing in garden. On a Front Range lot where setbacks, easements and covenants have already decided how much footprint you are allowed, going up is often the only direction left — and it keeps the yard, the mature trees and the driveway exactly as they are.
It is also the addition with the least room for error. Everything you add lands on walls and footings that were designed for a single storey and a light roof. Whether those can carry a floor, a set of bedrooms and a deck is a structural question that has to be answered before anyone prices the job, not after.
The new upper deck · Lakewood
A brick ranch, and ice inside the roof.
These are the estimate-visit photographs. A single-storey brick rear elevation with a low roof and a covered patio — and, in the roof structure itself, packed ice against bare framing. That third frame is the one that changes a conversation. It is not a decorating problem; it is insulation, ventilation and a roof that was never going to get better on its own.
Compare that first frame with the hero photograph at the top of this page. Same wall, same brick, same camera position — one storey higher.
For a few weeks in autumn, the house had no lid.
This is the part that makes people nervous, and reasonably so. The roof comes off, a new floor deck goes down on the existing walls, and the whole structure is open to Colorado weather until it is framed, sheathed and dried in. It is a sequencing problem more than a carpentry problem: everything is planned so the opening is as short as possible and the house is never left exposed to a forecast.
A ranch was never asked to carry a floor of bedrooms.
Every pound of the new storey ends up in walls and footings poured for a single-storey house. Beams, hangers and strapping are what make that legal and safe — and the new floor cavity is also the only place the upper floor’s heating, wiring and plumbing can run, so it gets designed once, with everything in it.
Rooms that did not exist eighteen months earlier.
Bedrooms under new dormers, a vaulted ceiling where the old roof pitch used to be, and a living space that opens straight onto a deck at first-floor level — a view this house never had. Ceiling heights and window head heights were set to match the original floor below, so nothing upstairs reads as an afterthought.
The storage is the part they will notice every day.
A new floor is an opportunity to fix what the old house never had: proper walk-in closets with fitted shelving, a bathroom with a tiled walk-in shower rather than a tub squeezed under a slope, and sliding doors onto a deck that turned the roof of the ground floor into outdoor living space.
Twice the house, on exactly the same ground.
New lap siding above, the original red brick left honest below, a run of new windows on both levels and a deck where there used to be roof. The driveway, the mature spruce and every foot of garden are where they always were.
Working with AAA has been fantastic, start to finish. They made the remodel process easy, communication was great, they were punctual, professional, honest and very helpful through the process.
A pop-top is a structural project wearing a remodel’s clothes.
Homeowners price pop-tops against additions and are surprised they are not cheaper per square foot. The reason is that you are not building next to a house, you are building on top of one — and every existing wall, footing and beam has to be re-examined for loads it was never designed to carry.
The answer has to come before the price, not after
Whether the existing structure can take a floor is an engineering question. On a design-build contract the people who answer it are the people who will frame it and the people who quoted it, so nobody discovers a problem halfway through and hands it back to the homeowner as a change order.
The house is open, so the schedule is the risk
There is a window between the old roof coming off and the new structure being dried in when the house is genuinely exposed. That window is planned, sequenced and watched. It is the single strongest argument against splitting a pop-top between a designer, an engineer and a builder who each control a different part of the calendar.
Matching new to old, in both directions
Ceiling heights, window head heights, roof pitch and siding line all have to agree with a house that already exists. This one keeps the original brick visible on the ground floor rather than wrapping the whole building — an honest join reads better than a disguised one, and it costs less.
You keep the garden, the trees and the address
The commercial case for going up is simple. On most Front Range lots you cannot buy more ground, and moving costs a great deal in fees before you have gained a single room. A pop-top converts the cheapest space you own — the air above your roof — into bedrooms, without touching the lot.
If you are weighing a home addition in the Denver Front Range and your lot is tight, ask about going up before you settle for going out. You can also see how the same team handled a ground-level addition in Denver and a two-phase remodel and addition in Littleton.
Ask us whether your house can go up.
We will look at what is standing, what your walls and footings can carry, and what your lot and zoning allow — then tell you honestly whether up is the right direction. It starts with a short phone consult, not a sales visit — and if it looks like a fit, we come out and look properly.
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