Way back in 2014 when we were looking at this house, there was one space that sold us on its potential, and it wasn’t even a room. At the very top of our staircase there is a door, which you would think would lead to a room. When we were looking at the house, I of course opened that door because its at the top of the stairs! I was shocked to find a very large walkout attic space with full headroom. I couldn’t believe that the door at the top of the stairs went to this large unfinished space! Our dream had always been to turn it into a media room, and almost 9 years later, that’s what we’re doing. It’s finally time for the Attic Renovation!
Attic Evolution
The dreams I’ve had for this space have changed several times over the last 8.5 years. I’ve changed the position of the screen wall. I’ve changed the look in our minds. I even added windows to the dream! This space is a perfect example of living with what you have and seeing how you use the space. All of that time allowed me to create the perfect plan for how we actually use our home, not how we envisioned living 8 years ago.
Attic Plans
My plan for this space is for it to serve as a multi-functional bonus room. It will mainly be for lounging & movie watching, but we’ll also have an exercise area and a large storage closet. It will even serve as a guest bedroom if needed. The finished space is about 480 square feet. It’s basically the size of our 2 car garage that’s below it.
There’s a lot of framing & construction involved in order to get this space bearing the load properly. We have to incorporate a few large beams, reinforce & raise the floor joists, even take parts of the roof off! We’re going to be adding windows to the front of the house and above the garage doors on the driveway side to let in natural light. It’s going to be amazing!
Contractor or DIY
There’s no way we could DIY this entire space with its load issues, exterior work and roofing, so we’ve hired this one out. Don’t worry, there will still be plenty of DIYs to show you!
We’ve hired a local contractor who lives in our neighborhood to construct the room, and he’s going to let me take on as much DIY as I can (or want to). He’s basically going to leave us a shell: construct the room, fix the load issues, wire it, and do the exterior. When he finishes, it will be a blank slate. Walls textured, OSB subfloors, naked windows. This will allow me to do the priming & painting, trim work, and get the flooring from where ever I want, whenever I want.
The Budget
Y’all, the budget on this project, yikes. We’ve been saving up for this project since we finished the kitchen 3 years ago. The load issues are expensive, plus inflation has made this project cost WAY more than it would have 3 years ago.
When the contractor finishes, we should have enough saved up to do the paint, trim & flooring. After that, we’ll just be taking on projects as we can. This is not going to be an overnight transformation. It might take a year to “finish” maybe longer.
Construction started in early January, and we’re nearing the finish line! They think they’ll be done next week!
Make sure you’re following me on Instagram because I’ve been sharing more “real-time” posts and stories about the Attic Renovation project there.
I’m so excited for that first glimpse of natural light coming from the stairwell! I’ve also added on a few other projects for the crew while they’re here, so stay tuned for those as well.
What would you do with a space like this? Let me know in the comments!
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