The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

How To Remodel Basements And Attics

For the purpose of this example we shall adopt a mythical family named Brown. The family consists of the mother, the father, a boy 15 years old and a girl 10 years old.

Let us assume that the Brown family wants, rather they must have, one additional bedroom. Their one-story house contains only two bedrooms. That situation was all right when the children were small and could both use the same bedroom. Now, however, each child needs a bedroom.

Once the idea of attic remodeling was firmly established, the Brown family wisely held several conferences during which the following purposes were reasoned out and actually written for the record.

1. The mother and father want to retain their bedroom.
2. The daughter wants her own bedroom and bath plus facilities for entertaining her girl friends overnight and over week ends.
3. The son would be quite happy with the other existing bedroom.
4. The family as a whole wants facilities for entertaining overnight and week-end guests.
5. Storage space is needed. A difficult problem?

No! It's just a case of studying the available space somewhat as suggested in Chapter 2 of this book.

Fig. 1 shows a plan view of the Brown attic. If you have any trouble visualizing what the plan view indicates, be sure to review Chapter 13.

What does the plan view indicate? Here are brief but sufficient answers.

1. The over-all attic space is 23 ft. 4 in. x 30 ft. 5 in. These dimensions are to the exterior surfaces of the walls. The walls are 6 in. thick. Therefore, the interior over-all dimensions are 21 ft. 4 in. x 29 ft. 5 in.
2. The stair well (opening in the attic floor) is 7 ft. 10 in. long and 2 ft. wide. The southwest corner of the well is 3 ft. 9 in. from the west wall and 8 ft. 6 in. from the north wall.