Palmer MA: Attic Conversion

: Hope you like it! We certainly enjoyed working with them to make this beautiful, soothing dwelling!

: The owner’s taste combined contemporary elements with a classic style in a beautiful way. If you like what you see, she is for hire as a design consultant!

: Here’s that tile. It looks amazing in-person.

: Glass enclosure helps keep the space feeling light and open. Note the tile detail.

: I’m told this feels great on the feet.

: Yes, we had to use both black and white grout. Not a very easy thing to do to keep them from bleeding together where the white and black tile meet.

: Let’s enter the bathroom. Like the skylight over the soaking tub?

: This is the finished kitchen below the play loft. The kitchen with a combination washer/dryer that doesn’t need to be vented. It only handles small loads, but provides a more convenient solution than hauling everything to the basement.

: The stairs up from the second floor got a nice wrought iron railing.

: On the left behind the chair is a door leading to storage space. The wall on the right covers one side of the chimney and contains the electrical panel.

: Here’s that wall hiding the electrical panel.

: From the lounge you can watch the TV and enjoy the gas fireplace. Note the custom wrought iron hardware on the joists to complete the warm, rustic look.

: Here you can see the ladder up to the loft. That other door is access to the crawlspace behind the knee-wall.

: The lounge

: We used a powered wire brush to clean and rough-up the old wood and obtained some new, rough-sawn pine and stained it all with a driftwood stain for a beautiful, weathered look.

: One feature we included was a play loft for the small child in the house. This was taken before the ladder was installed, but gives a nice view of it.

: On the West side, we kept the window and added a pretty stained-glass window above it.

: Below the balcony is a ductless mini-split HVAC appliance. It’s very quiet and very efficient. And given how well insulated the space is, it hardly ever needs to run!

: We had to place the balcony on top of the lift bucket of the Lull in order to get it up high enough and make it possible for a worker to bolt the balcony on with those 1/2″ metal rods.

: And here is the balcony, made by Custom Railing Design in West Springfield.

: Here is the wall being readied for the new balcony!

: The space combines real plaster walls, exposed, antique wood and brick.

: Here’s the door to bathroom and a large closet on the right. In addition to this closet, there is continuous closet space behind the knee walls and a “bonus” room hidden off another area of the attic.

: Rooms are taking shape!

: Here we see Steve using a piece of foam to represent the size and location of the skylights we were to install.

: After foaming the shell, we further installed rigid foam boards for both extra R-value and to eliminate thermal bridging. Ever see the stripes on a roof as the snow melts? Or dirty stripes on the underside of a cathedral ceiling? That’s thermal bridging. It simply means the wood framing doesn’t insulate as well as the insulated space between rafters. With some foam board and the furring strips to create an air gap, this problem is eliminated and the thermal performance greatly improved. You can now heat this apartment with a candle and cool it with an ice cube.

: Here’s a shot on the East side. We removed the window set and installed a slider in preparation for the balcony we would eventually install.

: In order to attach the balcony securely 3 stories up on the side of the house, we reinforced the framing and ran 1/2″ threaded rods through the rim joist and through the next joist. Bolting through two of the joists and installing the blocking distribute the force so that there’s much less of a chance of the balcony causing the side of the house to bow at all.

: We also had to put blocking in the wall where the handrail would mount to the house

: Once the knee walls were done and extensive rewiring to remove the old knob and tube and prepare for the new apartment, we insulated the shell. Nothing insulates like spray foam and with a cathedral ceiling, it’s really the best option. SAFCO Foam filled the exterior walls and rafters right down to the floor.

: One of the first things we did was build knee-walls along the sides.

: These rafter ties sat only 7′ off the floor. While it wasn’t possible structurally to remove them, we were able to raise them up to 8′. We also added some collar ties about 18″ below the peak so we had a space above to run wiring and a place to install lights and a fan.

: Here is the entrance to the attic from the 2nd floor.

: First, a couple of shots of the space before we started. It had 14′ ceilings and windows at both ends and a whole lot of open space.

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