How To Make An Attic Livable

Step 1 go up into the attic and observe what type of roof supports you have in your home.

How to make an attic livable.

Figure out if your attic can even be changed into a liveable space. Or even one section of wallpaper chair bed here are a few of my favorite examples. Make sure you can easily access your attic your attic needs to be easily accessible in order to fulfill its function well. You can sister the joists by cutting 2 x8 boards the same length as the joists applying construction adhesive and affixing each to a joist with nails.

That means you ll need 2x10 floor joists or maybe 2x8 in rare circumstances and at least 2x12 roof rafters. Attics don t generally offer a great deal of floor space and ceiling height. Then work with the right professionals to make turning the attic into a living space an exciting reality. Having enough head room in the attic is the first step to making the space into a living area.

Once you convert attic space into living space you need to bring it up to the standards of modern building codes. Obviously a crawl space attic won t do. At least half of your attic space must be 7 feet high by 7 feet wide with a total of 70 square feet. But if your attic was framed with rafters which are beams that support the roof.

Pull down stairs won t work for an attic room so you must add a permanent staircase. Codes vary from place to place but the rule of 7 for using an attic as an actual room typically applies. Rafter roof framing or truss framing. The nearly 50 000 average price reported by remodeling magazine drops to a.

Dormers range in sizes so decide which will work best for you and your existing structure. Floor covering area rugs are awesome lighting especially in an attic that might not have tons of natural light wall color could be fabric or can you paint. Four key ingredients to create a livable moment in an empty space. You can increase the space in your attic by adding a dormer which is a window structure that protrudes from the roof slope to provide more headroom space in the attic.

Pull down stairs won t be appropriate in this case and you ll need a permanent staircase. The cost of remodeling an attic in the united states varies significantly based on the cost of living in your region. Fortunately this is a fairly easy fix. You also have to decide where the loft stairs will begin and check how much space it will need.

You have rafter roof framing if the roof supports meet the floor joists with no extra supports or diagonal bracing.