Converting a Bedroom into a Loft

Spending a lot of time in the attic suggested that there were two main areas where there was a lot of space -- over the kitchen and over the bedrooms. I thought that the space over the bedroom could be used by taking the ceiling off the bedroom to make it more open and provide access to the attic area. I figured this would be a major change and take a lot of time. And I had only a vague concept of what I would be doing.

So how to determine what exactly to do? I figured I needed professional help, so I looked for an Architect. I found "The Studio of 2 on Sixth", a small studio with a husband/wife team of architects: James Linville and Lina Husodo. They really brought my ideas into reality. They took our old blue prints for the house, scanned them in and converted them to a new computer file. (In the process, they also flipped everything over -- the construction of the house was the mirror image of the blue prints). They built a cardboard model of the house, with a removable roof, so you could see the way everything would fit together. Which was a really good idea, since my mental model was taking the roof off the wrong bedroom. The architects worked from June 2000 to December 2000, and billed by the month, but altogether cost $2468.20.

The architects also put us in contact with KWR Services. KWR Services did an analysis of the impact on ventilation, insulation, and heating/AC issues. This analysis is what drove the decision to install a roof ridge vent and soffit vents.

Plus, the architects considered that if we removed the ceiling from the bedroom, that might make a difference in the structural construction in the exterior wall. The framing for the bedroom ceiling effectively acted to support the middle of the exterior wall. KWR suggested a structural engineer, who suggested that we stiffen the exterior wall by installing a double 2 x 12 the length of the room along the exterior wall, between the "first floor" and the "second floor".

One thing I did was to get a building permit. It seemed likely to me that I would need one -- I wasn't sure. As I happened to be downtown near the building permit office, I stopped in and asked for one. Big mistake. They wanted to see plans, and cost estimates, and schedules. I guessed it would take years to do, and maybe cost $4000, and wasn't sure what would be done. But they were eventually happy to issue me a permit, charge me $110 (20 Nov 2000) and send me on my way, with a permit for "Remodel Attic Space for Loft/Storage Area", and some brochures about permits and inspections.

Most of 2001 was spent in getting things ready for the remodelling work. We needed the roof ridge vent and soffits. I replaced roof supports and extended the catwalk in the attic. I reinforced the floor over the kitchen and doubled the amount of fiberglass insulation over the dining room, living room and kitchen. We had the wind turbines and the power roof vent removed and the roof patched, and then I installed a solar radiant barrier on the attic side of the roof in these areas. I contracted with All Year Heating and Cooling to move some of the A/C ducts, to get them out of the way, extend the ducts to the utility room and master bedroom closet.

Now we were ready for the major remodelling. We contracted with Masterpiece Remodeling to remove the old roof and reframe the new walls and floors. This started 1 Nov 2001, and was done by 8 Nov 2001. This just provided the rough framing. $9100. This also included installing the windows (see below) in the new exterior wall. The previous framing and cedar siding for the gable had to be removed and rebuilt. We took the opportunity to replace the cedar siding with a stone siding that matched the first floor, all the way up.

The design called for two new windows -- a small double-hung window in one of the loft areas, and a larger fixed window above the windows in the bedroom. Both of these were ordered ahead of time from Home Depot. $205.66 for the small double-hung window, an Andersen wood window TW18210 20 inches by 33 inches plus $328.86 for a 5 foot wide by 3 foot tall picture window, Andersen P5030. (ordered 29 October 2001, picked up 25 Nov 2001)

We called All-Year Heating and Cooling back to run new ducts for the new space -- the upstairs loft area (two new registers, plus re-running ducts for the bedroom itself. $1200 (29 Nov 2001), plus another $550 to McCullough Heating & Air Conditioning (19 Dec 2001)

It was clear that we would need changes to the electrical power and probably new circuits. While we would prefer to run them from the main circuit breaker box, that seemed really difficult, so we instead installed one big line to a new secondary circuit breaker in the attic. Jimmie Farrell Electric did this for us. $963.80 (15 Nov 2001). With the circuit breaker in place, I can then run the lines for the outlets and lights myself.

After the electrical wiring was done, as well as telephone and CAT5 cabling for computer and cable communication, I called for my first inspection for the electrical work, 26 December 2001. I mostly passed, but I needed to ground each outlet to the metal boxes, so I would need to do that and then have a re-inspection. In the meantime, it was passed to close off the walls with sheetrock.

The sheetrock work was done by John Hernandez, for $2800. He installed the sheetrock, taped and floated it to cover the seams and make it smooth, and then added a texture to the walls to match the rest of the house. It took 3 days, from 20 Feb to 22 Feb 2002.

We did the painting ourselves. We primed the sheetrock first with one coat of Glidden Speed Wall PVA Primer, white, 4 gallons. Then we use Ralph Lauren paints. Most of the room (and the loft) was done in GH109 Greenhouse Sunlight, 4 gallons.

 One wall was done in Naturals Pueblo NA39, 1 gallon, as an accent.

 

We also got two custom doors made by Home Depot. One short door for the access to the attic over the back bedroom, and one short door for access to the attic over the rest of the house. These were just the standard Lauan interior hollow core doors, but 24 x 36 inches for the one and 24 x 52 inches for the other. $219.59, ordered 16 Jan 2002, and picked up 9 Feb 2002.

We bought a Hunter ceiling fan (Model 23853, $552.92) 9 March 2002 with a 4 arm light kit for comfort and lighting. We put fluorescent lights in the loft itself, as well as a smoke detector (since heat rises).

Now we were ready for the floor. We had a 3/4 inch plywood subfloor. It would have been nice to match the oak flooring from the rest of the house, but instead we went with a pre-finished engineered flooring -- Huntington Plank by Robbins, in a Shara Sand finish. Texas Floors supplied the material and installed it for $1952.00 with the installation on 21 and 22 March 2002.

Baseboards and window trim was obtained from Wenco Distributors. They had red oak trim that matched the trim in the rest of the house pretty well. $313.93 on 5 March 2002 for the baseboards and $148.80 on 20 March for the window and door trim. We got James R. Mattocks to install the trim for $720 on 26 March 2002. He also enclosed the double 2x12 stiffening beam along the exterior wall with oak trim to look like a shelf, and topped the half-wall by part of the loft with a nice piece of oak.

One of the intended uses of this space was to hold books. After the framing was roughed in, I noticed that there was space over the master closet and decided to put some recessed bookcases into that loft wall. I framed it all out and then ordered 3 bookcases 42 inches wide, by 33.5 inches high and 10.5 inches deep from the Bookcase Store on 2 March 2002 ($353.98). They were ready on 23 March, and we just slid them into place, then secured them by nailing their wooden trim to the wall.

(Later, in September 2006, we would buy 4 more custom made bookcases from the Bookcase Store for $428.67 and put them along the other wall).

April 2002 was spent finishing the bookcases and trim. Everything had to be sanded and two coats of polyurethane applied.

Now the problem was how to get up (and down) from this space. During all the work, we were just using a step ladder to get up and down, but we needed something better. Our solution was to order a library ladder from Putnam Rolling Ladder Co. We ordered the #1 Top Bent ladder with Satin Nickel hardware, for $1293.00 on 22 March 2002, and took delivery on 29 May, with an extra cost of $118.13 for shipping.

This pretty well finished the work. I called for my final inspections and got (and passed) them on 28 June (Electric and Building) and 3 July 2002 (Heating and A/C).

So it took about 2 years and over $20,000. It opened up the room and added about 200 square feet of left storage space. That's expensive storage space!

A window in the Attic

Working in the attic is hot, and dark. I have a trouble light that I use, but one light bulb is not a lot of help. To help solve both these problems, I installed a window in the gable over the kitchen.

The window is a Model G42 Andersen Gliding Window. $524.06 from Home Depot

 Since it was a "new" install in an open wall, I could frame it in the attic to match the size of the window, which is basically 4 feet wide and 1 foot, 11 inches tall.

 On the outside, I trimmed it with 1x4 rough cedar to match the rest of the house, and on the inside, insulation and radiant barrier.

Granite Counter Top for the Island

While driving around, I saw a place, Stone Masters, that had a "clearance" sale on granite counter tops. It would be a major piece of work to replace all our counter tops, but we could start by just putting a piece down on the kitchen island. That's a fairly small simple rectangle.

So Linda and I picked out a black and white piece of granite, and had them cut it to 27.5 x 33 inches. $308.23 which gave us both the piece for the kitchen and the "left-over" piece.



I used some "liquid nails" to glue it down to the existing formica counter top, since the purpose of this was mainly just to experiment with having granite counter tops. If it works well, we'll probably want to redo all the counter tops in granite.

Trim trees

 The trees are growing.  We contracted with Arbortech to "Raise canopy on all trees" and clear them back from the house and the roof.  $450.

A Ceiling Fan for the Dining Room

In it's original design, the room next to the kitchen is the dining room. As such we had a large dining room table, and over it a chandelier. But the table went away with the divorce, and the room is being used more as a TV room, with couches and all the electronics for the TV -- VCR, DVD, cable box, and so on.

With this new use, we really need a ceiling fan to be comfortable in the summer. So I took down the old chandelier and we bought a new ceiling fan. $746.96 from Texas Ceiling Fans for a new Hunter BN Original, with Walnut blades and a 4-arm BN light kit.

I reinforced the light fixture from the attic, and installed the new ceiling fan.

Roof Ridge Vent

A major problem here in Texas is the heat in the summer. The sun beams down onto the roof of the house, heats up the attic, and that attic heat is passed down into the house. Insulation helps to reduce the transfer from the attic to the house, but lowering the temperature in the attic will also help. 

We have vents in all the gables, but that only allows a small amount of heat to escape the attic. From what I read, the best scheme is to have soffit vents in the bottom of the roof, around the first floor of the house. This lets cooler air into the attic from the outside. This cooler air, as it heats up, will rise and then exit the roof thru a ridge vent that is put along the peaked ridge at the very top of the roof. 

We contracted with Roofcrafters to install both the ridge vent (to let the hot air out), and the soffit vents (to let cooler air in). This costs $1200. Installing the ridge vent means taking off the roof shingles at the very top of the roof (along the ridge) and then using a circular power saw to cut the roof decking to provide an opening about 3 to 5 inches down from the peak of the roof, all along the ridge. Then a plastic ridge vent is put over this opening, and roof shingles reinstalled on top of the ridge vent. This prevents water from leaking thru the roof, but allows air out. 

Then down at the soffits, a similar opening is cut all around the house, and a grill put over it -- to keep out bugs and such critters. Effectively this is just a screen, letting air into the attic.

 Update: 23 June 2001.  Now that we have a roof ridge vent, we don't need the turbine vent that was originally put into the roof.  We had one of the wind driven ones, and then replaced that with a thermostatically controlled powered vent.  We paid Drury Roofing $400 to remove the turbine, plug the hole and then roof over the top of it.

 

A raised garden

Linda wants to plant a garden -- tomatoes and squash and lettuce and such. We really have no soil that is good enough for that. So we will put in a raised bed, using used railroad ties for the sides. A railroad tie is roughly 8 inches by 8 inches by 8 feet long, so if we put 2 ties end-to-end, we can create a bed that is 16 feet by 10 feet external measure, and 14 feet by 8 feet internally. Stacking them two high gives 16 inches of depth, enough for most crops.

Before putting this together, we mark out the space on the ground and dig down. Although at the moment we are expecting only a vegetable garden, it seems to me to be prudent to dig as far down as we can and get the rocks out of the ground under the garden. We rent a jack hammer to break the rocks into manageable size pieces.

Then we put the railroad ties in place to form the garden form and fill it in with some real good compost dirt (Growers Mix) from Austin Landscape Supplies. The total cost comes to $427.59. Later we need more even more dirt for the garden, another $271.71. We used 16 cubic yards of growers mix plus 12 #1 railroad ties.

Replace the Oven

The oven in the kitchen stopped working, so I replaced it.

Linda picked out a 27 inch GE model (JKP15BABB) that is the same size as the previous one, so I can just pull the previous one out and put the new one in.

Unfortunately, the mechanical controls that the old one used are no longer available; now we have electronic controls. The installation instructions say that the circuit boards can overheat if there is not enough outside air flow, so I had to cut an opening under the oven into the drawer below the oven. $660.27 from Bettis Appliances.

Update:  June, 2019.  The top (broil) heating element burned out.  Spectacularly.  We were trying to cook some salmon, and suddenly there was a burst of light, sparks and flames.  The element burned for some time, and eventually a section about an inch long fell off.  Turn the power off (at the circuit breaker).  Let it all cool overnight.  Then remove two screws, unplug the broil element, go get a replacement piece -- WB44K5009 Broil Element $61.11, plug it in, put the two screws back that hold it in place, turn the power back on, and everything (seems) to work again.

Second Mortgage Re-financing

In 1994, we refinanced the mortgage to a 7/23 ARM with an initial interest rate of 5.99%.  The interest rate is to adjust in May 2001, and probably significantly higher than we can get elsewhere.  Plus Linda has moved in and bought half the house, so it makes sense to refinance again, to get a lower rate than we expect. (Note: turns out the adjusted rate would have been 8.75%).  And it turns out that I had started a new job and my employer has an arrangement with Chase Bank to provide low-cost mortgages (as a way to attract new employees).

So we refinanced with Chase Manhattan Mortgage, getting a 15-year fixed rate mortgage for $140,000 at 7.25%.  This paid the balance of the second mortgage of $139,801.05 plus closing costs.  Closing costs included a 1% loan origination fee ($1400), title insurance ($1131.70), and an appraisal fee ($300), among other things.

The appraisal compared our house with 3 close-by that had been sold recently, trying to adjust for the differences in age, size, and so on.

Again the appraisal tried to figure out exactly the size of the house.

Interestingly, the previous appraisal  thought the house was 3048 square feet; this one things it is 3022 square feet.  The garage was 592 but is now 591.

The photos of the house show how the landscaping has changed, in the front

and in the back

Replacing Tile in Guest Bathroom

We replaced the original tile around the guest bathtub with new tile. The selected tile was an 8 inch by 8 inch square of blue.

The tiles were 77 8x8 Spanish Pastel Blue (A2VLEV) plus 45 trim pieces 2 3/4 x 8 SBN of the same color. This came to $220.65 from Brick & Tile Center, 12024 N. Lamar on 15 June 2000 (Check #441).

The tile was installed by Smittys Tile (Everett Smith). He removed the old tile, and the sheet rock behind it, installing 1/2 inch Durarock Board instead of the sheet rock. Then the tile was installed on the Durarock Board and grouted.

Smittys Tile started this work on 26 June 2000, and finished up by 28 June for a total cost of $1500.00 ($500 down and $1000 on completion).