The Finally Finished Attic Frontier

The time has come to finish the attic blog, as we've finally finished the bulk of the project!

When we started this project, at the end of October 2008, I remember saying that I wanted to have it done by mid-December, Christmas at the latest. Hmm. Then, we decided not to hire the whole job out, and I slowly realized that it would be a good bit longer than Christmas before it would be done...Ok. By the time Kaya is born, I hope to have it done, I said. Then we stepped through the attic floor into the ceiling into Kaya's room, and there went one more week of putting in a new ceiling...(but it's one darn fine ceiling at that--we could use a few more new ones!).


Well, it's end of May now, and apart from little pieces of trim here and there, the job is finally done! It's SUCH a wonderful space up there, with the wool carpet, 3 skylights, and 2 big end windows. It now serves as our music room (complete with our electronic drumset, microphone, guitar, and harmonica...and one day, an electric piano!), as well as a guest room and hang out space. It's so wonderful to sit on the futon and look out on to Forest Park across the river, or to stand in the sky light and look at the bridge. You'll have to come check it out for yourself...perhaps you can make it to our party that will soon happen...once all that trim work is done!

But in the meantime, here are some pictures to tide you over, and to give you a slight idea of all the work that went into this exciting project, and what a wonderful job Geoff and Ralph (and a couple others) ended up doing over the space of 6 months:

First of all, if you haven't seen the first attic blog post, that's where the first part of the job is.

After installing the sub-floor, which Geoff and Ralph leveled and installed pretty quickly, it was time to raise the roof (seriously!). They had to do that in order to be able to build and install a pony wall which would provide the roof support for the extra weight it would be supporting. In the process, we learned that our roof was really saggy, but according to the pros, that's really normal. We were relieved to hear that!


After the roof was jacked, the pony wall could be finished...until, of course, they realized that the floor wasn't straight (aka sagging), AND might not support weight properly. SO, they (mostly Ralph) had to take out ALL the subfloor that they'd already installed, undo the pony wall they just finished, and put in additional 2x6s in the floors to make sure it wouldn't collapse under excess weight! Talk about frustration and patience all in one! They cranked that out in a matter of days, though, and were back on schedule (to where they had left off) in no time and a hell of a lot of effort! This is Geoff smiling BEFORE he learned that the floor would have to be reinforced...!


After the floor and ponywall frame were built, we were able to start insulating the ceiling. I can't even remember all the details, as we did so much research in the process...but we ended up being able to come away with a solid amount of insulation without sacrificing too much headroom. Our roofing friend, Greg, helped us out with some extra foam (THANKS GREG!!), which really helped. You can also see the expanding foam that we used in the corners of the rafters. Behind the foam is very densely packed Green Fibre, basically recycled paper treated with Boric Acid, and the expanding foam keeps the area air tight where the Green Fibre is. After all the research Geoff did, he learned that this method, though still somewhat controversial, is the best way to insulate--environmentally, financially, and for saving space.


Once the ends of the ceiling were insulated, the drywall could be started on the end walls. That process REALLY gave the room the first finished look. That meant, as well, that we would be able to install the windows soon, which would be a great improvement to the barn-door that was keeping the opening closed (they cut the hole relatively early in the process so materials could be moved in and out of it).



The nook is what really killed them...knees, back, neck...crawling around in that little space, stuffing insulation behind the foam, mounting drywall, sealing it, sanding it...I'm impressed, to say the least! One day, Kaya will really appreciate all their hard work! Until then, it will make a GREAT storage space behind the futon, and an even better fort!



The ghost of attics present...(the day that Kaya was born, Ralph was at our house trying to finish the messiest of the job so we could come home to less dust! What a sweetheart!)...


Finally, it was time to start in on the ceiling! We decided to go with cedar 1x6s because we love the smell and the look of the wood. AND because we found a sweet deal at The Cedar Barn. That was a big job, but Geoff cranked it out in the space of a week, I think (ok, I helped twice...). And that REALLY made it look finished up there!


And then, we could finally build and install the railing...which I was VERY eager to do because I was constantly worried that someone would just fall down the hole one day. We came up with a really bomber system (Geoff and Ralph did, that is!), and I helped a bit with the design work. Of course, now that we had a baby, we didn't take all that many pictures of the whole process, but here's a few...the finished product is visible at the end.


And THEN...the skylights. We didn't really plan on doing these until summer hit, but we had a beautiful weekend and the job was magnetic! We couldn't hold back! They'd been staring us in the face for months, we were so eager to install them. We'd done our research there, too, working very hard to find skylights that would open in the middle...it was important to us to be able to stand out and look out to the river. So, we found some German skylights made by a company called Fakro, and have been VERY impressed with the product thus far.

After a couple of weekends, the job was done! Nothing in comparison to that sub-floor and the nook!




And there you have it: How to Finish an Attic in 6 months on a budget! Just like that! Or, better put, "How to Wear out your Husband and Your Father in Law in 6 months for a Few Bucks and a Helluvalotta Dust"

For the dramatic effect, here's a few before and afters:

Before we even insulated, back in 2007, here's the North end, near Jamie and Ivo's house. Notice the knob and tube wiring...this was pre-wiring project, too.

This is the same angle, just a wider vantage point...


This is after we cut the hole for the ladderwell and dismantled the shelving that Geoff and Ralph built on the side ends. But it provides a true-to-form view facing Brian's house, or southwest.

Same direction, ALL finished....minus some skylight trim!


"Good job" is definitely UNDER estimating. "Thank-you" is too. But we DO love it, and it was definitely worth all the frustration and heartache, blood, sweat and tears (easy for me to say as I sat downstairs most of the time, pregnant and complaining of the dust!). =)