This post is long and detail-heavy. It is the record I want to keep of the renovation of our attic space. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
Seven years ago this August, we moved into our house. It's my dream house - the house I was in a few years before it was put up for sale, and I fell in love with it. It's not fancy, really. It's just a house, but it had everything I wanted - 5 bedrooms all upstairs, living areas and kitchen on the main floor, 2 bathrooms, laundry on the main floor (rather than in the basement), a huge basement finished enough for great, clean storage but not with enough height to actually finish. And the backyard... It's dreamy!
When I found out it was for sale and we pulled up to the house to tour it, I told Chase, "We can't afford it. There's no way we can afford it." But we looked anyway, and by God's grace and a miraculous set of circumstances, we COULD afford it. I still pinch myself about that sometimes.
Yes, my kitchen is small and I'd love to change the layout, but food tastes just as good coming out of it as any other kitchen I could cook in. (Turns out food is more about the cook than the kitchen...) Yes, there are things here and there I'd tweak if I could, but on the whole, I STILL cannot believe this is my home!
From day one when we walked into the house and it was ours, we'd dreamed of finishing off one space: the attic. It was unfinished and filled with blown-in insulation on the floor. I remember saying, "It would be so cool if we could finish it by the time Lily turns 13. It could be a great teen hangout."
The attic had a proper set of stairs with railings built originally with the house. It had a (damaged) tongue and groove wood floor that was hidden below decades-old carpet remnants, and a thick layer of blown-in insulation. Bat poop speckled the insulation around one chimney (we took care of that problem early on in our home ownership!), and while I dreamed of what it could be, I can't say that the attic was exactly inviting at that stage.
The attic space was pretty huge, but one dormer ended up housing one of the 2 HVAC units we put in 6 years ago when the old one croaked early that summer. The same dormer also housed the vent for the bathroom on the 2nd floor, and a bunch of duct work to heat and cool bedrooms below.
Late last fall, again by a miracle, we had money to dive into "the attic project." It's a bit of a long, complicated story that I'm not going to get into, but suffice it to say it felt like nothing more than God showing off. The short version is He literally put the money in our account - almost exactly what we'd need - and put restrictions on it so that we could only use it for this project. From the time we learned we could do this, I said, "God's got a plan for the attic. I don't know what He'll use it for, but He's planning something." So, as anyone who takes on a renovation project must, we took a step of faith and hired a contractor.
November 2023 - enlarging the windows
The first step was to get all the blown-in insulation sucked out so the contractors could work. Who knew there are companies that have massive insulation vacuums that will come to your house and do this?!? There are, and now you know. :)
The second step was to remove the original leaded glass windows, enlarge the openings, and install new, larger windows. When deciding what size window to put in, I told my contractors that I needed the high school football center to easily be able to get out of the window should there ever be a fire. I have no idea if the high school football center will ever be in the attic, but if he is and the worst were to happen, I wanted to be prepared.
January 2024
After the windows were in, the next step was to install beams to support the underside of the roof. It took two 16-foot 6x6 side beams and three 16-foot 6x6 cross beams to do it, and you simply can't go through the interior of our house with beams that long. It's hard to see in the picture above, but what's happening there, is there is scaffolding set up next to the house in an area that the contractors had to clear with a snow blower. One guy is on the ground handing one 6x6 beam to a guy who is on the top of the scaffolding. That guy is then going to hand the 6x6 beam to the guy waiting inside the open window in our 3rd floor attic. It was barely double digits that day - SO COLD!!!
Initially, I was watching this process from the inside of the large window on the 2nd floor that looked directly out onto the top level of the scaffolding. Julie (age 4) was with me, and she said, "Mom, that doesn't look safe." I agreed, and we both went downstairs to a place where we couldn't see what was happening. At least, we did after I dashed outside to take the above photo.
March 2024
As it turned out, 2x4's spanned a distance of 16 feet, when really they're rated to span a distance of only about 8 feet. Whoops! So we had to open up the floor there and do some significant reinforcing. Which also required supporting the floor from below as they were working on it (so we had a pretty sweet support system in our bedroom below for a few days), removing the insulation, and all kinds of details that I'm thankful the contractors figured out and took care of. The original floor was a tongue and groove wood floor, but it was in rough shape and couldn't have been finished without significant repair work. Additionally, we knew we wanted carpet for the attic for both sound transfer and comfort. So pulling up the floor to fix the bounce wasn't a hard decision.
With the overhead beams in place (you'll see a picture of those soon), and the floor reinforced, it was time to start framing. I couldn't believe how fast the framing was happening! Just a day at it and my vision was taking shape!
It was about this time that I found out I was pregnant. To say I was shocked would be an understatement. SO many emotions!!! But. But now I knew that this attic was for us, to help us continue to live here well with another little soul added to our midst. Glory to God for His provision!
One thing I'd been struggling to figure out was how I was going to pad the window seats that were being framed underneath each window. I figured out that the most economical way to pad them would be to make them the width of a standard twin bed - 38 inches. The one window seat (of 3) that was already framed was roughly 32 inches wide anyway, so if we just added another 6 inches, we'd be good to go. Plus, then I'd have 3 extra long twin size beds, each in their own dormer, should I need them down the road. I talked to the contractors, we made this adjustment, and viola! Three massive windowseats!
East dormer
South dormer
West dormer
North dormer
With how to pad the window seats decided, the contractors got busy and framed away!
I forgot to mention that also as part of this project, we realized that we should probably update the knob and tube wiring in the top 1/2 of our house while we had the attic floor opened up anyway and could "easily" get to all the wires. This brought on a unique set of challenges for our electrician who spent many an afternoon fishing his way down walls to reach outlets, switches, and light fixtures on the 2nd floor.
Along with the 2nd floor wiring, he also had to rough in all the electrical for the attic space. Which begged the questions of how many lights? Where should they be placed? How many switches? Dimmers or no? Placement of HVAC vents and intake? Placement of plug ins? Do we want USBs as part of the plug ins? How many breakers? Etc., etc., etc. We spent a good long time discussing such things on more than one occasion. But I was pleased this week, now that it's all done, to have Chase tell me that we "nailed it" on lighting, switch placement, and plug ins. Whew!
May 2024
After the electrical rewiring of the 2nd floor and the electrical and plumbing rough-in (we included a sink, though no bathroom) in the attic, the next step was insulation. We went with a closed-cell spray foam installed by a contractor with quite a few years of experience and a very good reputation. He helped us work through different options and the best insulation available for our limited space. The roof is installed on top of 2x4's, though the peaks and valleys are supported by 2x6's. And because our home was stick-built over 110 years ago, the spacing of the 2x4s was consistently inconsistent. When the insulation was all in, I couldn't believe what a difference it made in the temperature of the attic. It was SO much more consistent in temp!
June 2024
With the insulation in, next came the drywall. And FINALLY the vision I'd been seeing in my head began to take shape so those around me could see it too. (See those wrapped beams - we had to wrap them to protect them from the insulation and the drywall mud. They become a focal point eventually!)
I felt for those poor drywall contractors. It was June and July when they were in the attic space that wasn't yet cooled with AC. (We kept the vents sealed so drywall dust wouldn't go all over the house.) First, they had to get the sheets of drywall up into the attic - which took using a lift to get them onto the 2nd story balcony. Then they had to carry each sheet individually into the house, through a bedroom and part of the hallway into another bedroom before they could turn to head up the stairs and carefully make the 180 degree corner on the steps around into the attic. Hanging the drywall was an adventure, because there are SO many angles! And they hung directly onto the 2x4's, which meant they had to measure and cut so that the drywall butted right up to the 2x6's that supported the valleys and the peaks (those are the dark lines you see along the angles in the photo above). The peak of the attic ceiling is about 14 feet high, so they stood on scaffolding (which also had to be hauled up into the attic) to install the drywall above the beams.
All through the project every time a new contractor showed up at my house, I'd open the door to their smiling face in the morning. We'd introduce ourselves, and I'd suggest they leave their stuff there on the porch while I showed them where they'd be working. Then we'd trek up the 18 steps from the 1st floor to the 2nd, and then up the 14 steps from the 2nd floor to the 3rd, making the 180 degree turn half-way, and they'd look around very quietly. And I'd say something like, "It'll be really neat when it's done, but..." And they'd quietly nod their head. I had more than one contractor tell me that this was one of the most unique projects they'd done.
I have to say we hit the jackpot on contractors - a great GC, then there was insulation, electrical and plumbing, drywall, and flooring. All of them were kind, patient, responsive, and did what they said they were going to for the price they said they would. Many thanks to them! (Because if we'd had to do this ourselves, it would still look like those first couple of pictures!)
July 2024
Once the drywall was in and finished, it was time to prime, paint, stain, seal, and all the things that we can actually do! In the photo above, you can see that the beam closest to the camera isn't stained yet, but all the others are. We had to stand on scaffolding to do it, but we stained the beams a dark mahogany color, and I love it! Then we sealed them with polyacrylic.
I thought priming and painting the space would be a breeze since there was no carpet to work around, and since we were painting out the 2x6 peak and valley boards that showed thorough the drywall. There really was only edging around the beams. However, there were a variety of things I didn't take into account, like all the caulking that would need to be done to fill and seal the thin cracks along those 2x6's. And I also didn't take into account exactly how much there was to paint. It's a big room - about 650 square feet, give or take. But with a 14-foot peaked ceiling in the middle, and SO many tight corners/edges to paint with a brush that not having drips in them took a lot of time and care. It took about 6 to 7 hours per coat of primer/paint to do the whole thing, and we primed it once and painted it twice. We kept having to buy more paint, because I kept underestimating the actual square footage of what we were covering!
You'd think once we got that far, most of the paint work would be done. But we hadn't yet painted the trim (which the contractors were coming back to install), and worse, there was still the stairwell to deal with. It had cracking original plaster walls that had been dinged by 110 years of stuff being hauled recklessly up to storage as well as all the things our contractors had hauled up, God bless them! So I learned how to patch an old plaster wall and fill relatively significant dings. That part painted up pretty nicely.
But the stairwell's banister - ugh. First there was the sanding. (I forgot to mention earlier that we had to also sand the 2x6's AFTER the drywall had gone up - big mistake! We should've sanded those before the drywall was put up! And we had to sand the beams before they could be stained. I hate sanding.) I think it was somewhere in the realm of 3 hours of sanding the banisters with a palm sander. Then I learned when I was priming, that it took about 4.5 hours to prime all of the trim/banisters/railing around the stairs. Egad!!!! The painting took about 4 hours per coat, and it took 2 coats, so... that was a lot more painting time than I thought it would take.
I should say here that I was in my 2nd trimester for the sanding/priming/painting stage of everything, and I am SO glad!!! I wore masks when appropriate, I opened windows and had things vented as I should, and I generally had the energy to do what needed to be done. God's timing was so good!
September 3, 2024
When the contractors came back to install the trim, they also installed the cabinets and counter top. I wanted a "serving counter" in the attic, and I also wanted a sink, because its a foregone conclusion that spills will happen up there! I wanted to be able to easily and quickly be able to clean up a mess or refill a cup if needed. So there's a small bar sink toward the left side of the counter. Additionally, we needed to be able to access what is behind that north wall (our HVAC system), so one of the cabinets has a false back that can be removed for easy access to the system. After the counter was installed, the electrician/plumber came back and finished up the last of the details that were his.
September 3, 2024
It was the first week of September, and this journey we'd started exploring the November before was almost over! All that was left to do was clean out all the last stuff, give the floor a good vacuum and wait for the carpet to arrive. Ellie danced in the window seats while we hauled away trash, leftover paint, empty boxes, wood scraps, sanders, and all manner of odds and ends that accumulate when you're renovating.
We were expecting the carpet to come on a Thursday, but the guy who laid our carpet is a neighbor and caught me Tuesday night before. He said if Chase would help him get the carpet upstairs, he could install it a day early! So Chase bit the bullet and helped move the 12-foot wide, 26-foot long rolls of carpet up into the attic. All those stairs, all those turns, now with freshly painted walls, trim, and railing that I really didn't want ruined. By some miracle, they made it, but not without battle scars. A month later, the scraped up part of Chase's wrist is finally almost healed! (I have no idea how our neighbor manages to move carpet on a daily basis and not be beat to smitherines!)
A week after that, the couch was delivered and I bought and the kids helped build some shelving to store things. And just 2 weeks before Lily's 13th birthday, the attic was finished!!!
Can you even believe that? I mean, what a dream! What a journey! What a God! I honestly didn't even have the faith to ask Him for this. I just spoke that it would be cool if we ever got to finish it, if it could be done before we had a teenager. And here we are...
East dormer
North dormer
West dormer
South dormer
It's a family hang out where 5 people can sit on the couch and watch a football game, while kids build Lego in one area, others are munching in another, kids are reading or playing in another, and no one is on top of each other and no one's project has to be moved off the dinner table so we can eat together as a family. It's quiet in the attic, and you do feel on top of the world - we can see the rooftops of all of our neighbors for a block or more!
Chase has an office up here (and the day after the carpet was installed he had his first online meeting up here!), the boys' building toys (Lego and K'nex) moved up here so that the three of them could share a bedroom and still have a place to play. And that was part of making room for the baby's room. (If you happen to have read this far and see Connor, compliment him on moving out of his single room to share with his younger two brothers so the baby could have a nursery. That kid is pretty amazing. And compliment Spencer and Nolan on sharing their room with Connor - it's cozy to have 3 in a room, but they haven't complained one bit.)
I know the structural engineer said not to have massive dance parties in the attic, but dance parties are one of the favorite activities for the Francl kids, thanks largely to Ellie's love of "We Didn't Kill a Cow" by the Cheese Weasels (aka Dude Perfect). But the kids are small, so I figure it doesn't count.
As with any space, there are things that aren't perfect - anything other than walking sounds like a herd of elephants in the attic, and the wrestling/jumping that sometimes happens makes it sound like the house is falling down. We're figuring out how to keep it tidy and clean. (New, soft carpet makes everyone shed their socks as soon as they're up in the attic. SO MANY SOCKS!!!)
In closing, I just want to say, again, how very grateful I am for this life I get to live, for this home that has been given to me, for the people I share it with, for the messes we make, for the spaces we fill, for the goodness seen all around me. There have been and will be seasons of really hard - in the midst of this renovation there have been really hard things! But I am constantly in awe of the God who walks with me through any season, of His care for the desires of my heart, of His generosity toward me. This was a huge gift from Him, and I don't ever want to act like or pretend that we did anything to deserve it. He gave it to us. May we use it for His purposes and His glory. May it be a blessing to others as well as us.
East dormer Before & After
South dormer Before & After
North dormer Before & After
West dormer Before & After
PS - the Attic will never again be as tidy and clean as it was in these photos. I took them when all the kids but Ellie were at school, and Ellie and I had spent the previous hour tidying and cleaning. But this is what the attic looks like in my mind when I imagined it year ago and now - lots of open floor space, 3 giant window seats to cuddle up and read on, a cozy couch for movies, an office space for Chase, and a place to be together on top of the world.
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