The Attic!!!

This is the post that I've been so excited to post all year long.  It started when we moved in and I found out I was pregnant.  We knew we needed another bedroom.  This is how it looked when we started.  It was a pull-down staircase, the walls were bare wood and the floor just had some plywood scraps laid down in some areas, but in some areas nothing but loose fiberglass and the kids couldn't go up there safely. The previous guy had run some electrical, one outlet and one light, and put in a skylight.

Last Thanksgiving break Jared was planning on starting the project, June was a couple months old.  He started doing some insulation work first and it looked like we were building a spaceship at the top of our house.

Soon we needed a real staircase.  This was a big problem.  We wanted to put the staircase where the closet was in the girls room below it.

 It was going to involve a lot of math and some serious safety and code information that we didn't have, so we decided to find someone to help us.  This was harder than you'd think. We waited until April to really get started.  Finally my cousin's husband Denny, a GC, came to help get the stair stringers framed up and figure where to cut the hole in the floor/ceiling.  You only get one shot at it, right?

Jared finished off everything, including running HVAC up there, under the stair stringers, it's legit.  We left a hole in the middle for a dresser and the end is a cozy, little closet to replace the one that was demolished.

This is a bad shot of the closet, but it fits all of Lily's clothes easily, with two nice shelves for shoes.

This is a custom dresser that we had built to fit under the new stairs.  The room is smaller now and we  wanted to save as much room as possible.  It was insane how difficult it was to find someone to build this.  People don't seem to like building custom things at angles.

Uncovering the eyebrow window was exciting, we didn't know what to expect.  It exceeded our expectations in the amount of light it let in.  The attic had previously been a dark, cold space, I didn't want it to feel spooky.

 Jared put down the sub-flooring and reinforced the floor joist system, and we decided to finish two out of three tunnels, which are from the various roof pitches of the house.

 This is the new door.  Eventually we'll put up some kind of sliding barn style door, but Jack's not too concerned with privacy for now.  The door was similar to every other part of the construction, it was constant troubleshooting and completely custom made from scratch.  Some of the challenges with the door are that the stairs start immediately at the door,  so it has to be extra tall for headroom, plus there's the 45 degree angle from the roof which makes it an odd door.  Plus the walls aren't square, so the putting up the molding was a challenge, and the molding we wanted, which would match the other doors in the hallway, isn't available anywhere that we could find.  We ended up swiping it from our bedroom's closet and replaced the closet with simple 5" pine flat stock.

Here's the bottom of the stairs.  I like the pie cut stairs, which are similar to the main staircase of the house.  We had the same carpet put in that we put in the rest of the upstairs, it joins up nicely.  At this point we left the wood unfinished to start the transition of the wood upstairs, everything of course polyurethane sealed clear.

Jared put in some hard wired LED night lights in the stair tunnel, which is really nice for Jack, who was nervous about sleeping up there.  In fact, one day before he moved in, he told me "I'm a little bit scared to sleep up there, but I know I just will need some time to get used to it."  I thought that was very grown up of him.  We went with a bulkhead style light on a 3 way switch for the stairs, getting more of the rough industrial feel.

This is a good view up the stairs, standing at the bottom.  24 feet of running roof line from bottom to top.  The ladder to the right is the access to the small tunnel, made out of hard alder.  Again, the math was hard getting the different length legs drilled out just right to accept the 1" pipe.  The ladder and railings are all made out of black pipe and were interesting challenges to make.  We had to add on extra stout studs where the foot mounts at, and the top was sank with 6" 1/4" lags into 3 2x8 sistered floor joists.  I didnt want that ladder effecting the drywall under it.

This is the small tunnel.  We like to lay in there and read, or the kids pretend it's a ship or something.  Added in 2 hand pulls, which are also a bit of safety butt stops as you back out of the tunnel to line up with the ladder.  Same pipe as the handrail.

Next to the small tunnel is a simple built cabinet.  Everything with a poly clear coat.

One side is for hanging clothes and the other has drawers and a shelf for clothes and shoes.  Together its more than enough room for a kid's clothes.

To the left of that, and straight ahead from you when you come up the stairs is the big tunnel.  It's got shelves and it's great for Jack's toys and books.  It's about 4 1/2 ft high at the peak, so it's good for kids to sit in to play.  I must say one of Jared's pride moments of this room was the seamless joint on that corner, getting 2 mitered walls to join.  One wall was 45 degrees and the other was about 42, and the left wall of the tunnel, the rafters were bowed in a bit.

To the left of that is the eyebrow window.  Jared kept the original wood that was around it, which is why it's different from the rest of the room's wood.  This is the thing that Jared left for the very last, because it was one of the most difficult parts of the room.  It's really fun to look out because it's so high above the street, you can see several blocks and have a great view of the mountains.  That wood hood is uninsulated, had a hundred nails and staples poking through from the roof shingles that had to get sliced off.  The metal strap was from a ring of a old rotten whiskey barrel pot, which had the perfect curve to match the radius bend of the hood.  It adds a bit of structural support for the hood and the shingles attached to it.  Its attached to the joists, and each plank has a chrome button head screw, to give that feel of a barrel back to it.  We had a $100 piece of tempered 1/4" glass cut to match the opening.

This is looking at the room from the eyebrow window.  We got a pine bed and side table which match the walls.  Ruby, the cat, spends almost all of her time up there, it's the warmest place in the house and she's Jack's best friend.

The view from this window is great, mountains on one side and on the other, all the lights for miles and miles.  This window opens and gets a nice breeze. The custom, black out shade is especially for skylights.

This is the top of the room, it's about 10 feet high.  We bought a cool, antique 1880's working heat register from Maryland online.  It's hard to see in this picture, it's got a neat patina and scroll design. Open in the summer and closed in the winter.  The wood we used, Blue Ponderosa Pine,  is harvested from trees that are already dying, which gives it the color and pattern.  Its full of patterns and bug holes.  We filled the holes that went through, since we could see the metal reflective radiant barrier under it, but embraced the hundreds of holes still left.  It's better environmentally, which I like.  Jared expanded the 1 outlet into 4 and the one light into the 4 3 1/2" LED recessed cans.  Low power use...but mainly to not generate heat.

Jare bear is amazing.  He works all the time, it's kind of a problem.  It was also a lot of work for me, since my partner wasn't there to help with day to day things.  He did amazing work on this and used up most of his spare time from April to November, on and off when he wasn't needed elsewhere.  You can't tell from the pictures, but it's all finished and trimmed very well.  He really paid attention to details and everything is very solid.  Nothing is wobbly or weak, the whole thing is like a solid bunker in a wobbly, squeaky 115 year old house.

The instant the attic was done he started fixing the walls in Jack's old room to get it ready for June and Annie.  The walls under the wallpaper were worse than we thought, it's another instance where a project is much more work than predicted.  Holy crumbling plaster cracks!  Once he's done with this room, it's on to the next item on the list.  Sheesh, good thing he likes doing it.

It's worth it.  This is the first night that the attic was sleep-able.  We were all so excited and Lily wanted to sleep on the floor to keep Jack company.  I love these guys so much and Jared for making it happen.