Where It All Started

Tags

Aslan's Tent, Attic, Cair Paravel Library, Spare Oom, The Lodge, Wardrobe

This blog started with us creating Narnia in our attic.  It’s been a couple years since then, and Narnia is well-loved and well-lived-in by our three grandchildren.  Now that it’s not brand new, it seemed like a good time to revisit it and see how it’s worn, so to speak.

Heading up the stairs–Aslan’s Tent is on the right, the rest of Narnia on the left.

The door to Aslan’s Tent.

I like to say that Aslan’s Tent is done in Rococco-Morocco style.

I had the builder add a small window at the top of the stairs to give a sneak-peek at Narnia, and I think the Gothic touch fits Cair Paravel.

Unlike the books, our Wardrobe is located in Cair Paravel because, after all, this is a floor plan in a house–not an actual world!

Although the books never mention it, I’m sure there was a Library in Cair Paravel, because every castle must have a library.

Around the corner of the left-hand edge of the above photo is the door to The Lodge.

Inside, The Lodge should meet the approval of any dam-building rodent!

Across Cair Paravel is Spare Oom, which is more in its craft mode now (meaning a mess) than its guest room mode.  But it does clean up nice.

Word Press seems to have choked on all these photos, so I’ll wait for the next post to go on through the Wardrobe into Narnia proper.

 

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Bye-Bye, Night-Night

Tags

Attic, Construction, Design, Grandkids, Narnia

Stuart, Ben and Todd crew wrapped up their framing work today and cleaned everything up.

Ben wheeled the table saw down the stairs and out to the truck.  You know that really means they’re done with it!  You don’t lug that hulking thing downstairs if you might have to take it back up again!

The walls between the berth beds are framed in.  The GKs were over her for the morning and we took them upstairs to show them what’s happening.  I asked Charis if she knows who’s going to sleep up here.  She ducked her head and shyly whispered, “Charis and Tol.”  (That’s how she says Kol).

Yep, Charis, that’s going to be your side of the room; Kol will be on the other side.  Of course they can sleep wherever they want, but for decor puposes, I’m planning a girls’ side and a boys’ side.

Nice and swept clean, there’s the Book Nook on the left and the entrance to Narnia on the right.  The boys’ berths are on the side wall where the air compressor is sitting.

One very noticeable change happened today, and you couldn’t miss it happening because that saws-all makes more racket than the table saw!

The window is cut into the stairwell, giving a glimpse into what’s ahead before you mount the last couple stairs.  It will be lined in wood and get porch brackets in the upper two corners to give it a modified Gothic appearance.  There’s already a round window at the bottom of the stairs giving a glimpse of the family photo gallery on the stairwell walls.  That window says, “Family is important to us.”  Hopefully, this window will announce, “Something unusual is up here!”

Framed

Tags

Attic, Cair Paravel Library, Construction, Floor Plan, Grandkids

As I said, a lot happened on Thursday.   In addition to the work in Aslan’s Tent, most of the framing got finished in the rest of the attic.

The architect’s plan called for the wall at the top of the stairs (pictured above) to be cut back to about the studs where the lightbulb is and a waist-high railing to be installed.  As Stuart and I talked over this plan, it became clear that the door frame is load-bearing.  They could work around it, but it would be better not to cut those studs near the door.

So we came up with an alternate plan that I really like.  They will cut open the area that is marked on the sheetrock, including that single stud going up through it (the one that has all the plugs next to it).  Then in order to make the roughly 21″ x 28″ opening into a faux Gothic arched window, I’ll need two wooden porch brackets like this one from Victorian Woodshop.  The brackets will be mirrored in the top corners of the opening, creating an arch like this, but on a smaller scale.

The next photo shows the Book Nook which is what I’m calling this little area to the right of the door into Aslan’s Tent.  (The styrofoam cup is sitting next to the wall of Narnia.)  The Book Nook will be about 4 feet deep and 6 feet long with a slanted ceiling. The plan is to put book shelves in there, hence the name!

 In the next photo you can see a good shot of the double LVL I posted about earlier.

The LVL will definitely be a factor in the ceiling height of this open hallway-sitting area where Todd is standing.  He is right next to the bathroom wall with the opening into Narnia right in the center of the photo.

This photo shows a better view of the hallway-sitting area.  I call this whole area the Cair Paravel Library, and the Book Nook is part of it.  (There’s no such thing in the Chronicles of Narnia, but we know Cair Paravel was a glorious castle, so I imagine it had a pretty stupendous library!)  I spent quite a bit of time doing research and calculations today, concluding that between the Book Nook and the long hallway wall between The Lodge and Aslan’s Tent, we should be able to fit in enough shelves for our collection of books.

Approximately 600 books have been residing in boxes since we moved here four years ago.  I collected them (mostly used) for our kids and carted them to Africa, then France, then back to the States.  It was important to us that our kids grow up able to read English books while we were living in the francophone world.  Kara learned to read French before she could read English, but she has read most of the classic books that well-read American kids have read.  I can’t wait to share those books with our grandkids!

Showers, The Lodge and Tinker Toys

Tags

Attic, Construction, Decor, Narnia, The Lodge

Day Ten of construction started bright and early at 7:30 a.m.  Who can complain about that with a sunrise like this outside their front door?

Saturday I bought the shower stall at Home Depot (because the ones at Lowe’s either had shelves in weird places or had ugly fake tile on the walls) and arranged to have it delivered today.  So that made two kinds of showers predicted for today.

Just like the song “We’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain,” oh, we all come out to meet it when it comes!  The driver was laughing because the pigs actually came running to meet him; they thought that big thing on the truck was a great big edible treat, I’m sure.  Sorry, girls!  The three-dog welcoming committee and Herb came, too.  And of course I was there with my camera.

This cute little three-wheeled forklift thing-y is apparently called a “Moffett.”  According to the driver it’s not as fun as it looks because it tips over easily and is too small to have any counter-weight to what it’s lifting.  I believe him, but it sure does have a neat little turning radius that makes it fun to watch.  (Companies like it because it doesn’t add much weight to the truck.  I guess they don’t ask the drivers what they think!)

The Moffett zipped the 100+ lb. shower over under the shelter of the carport, not that I suppose water will do much harm to a shower.  The driver loaded the Moffett back onto the truck and took off, all very tamely with no scary tipping incidents.

With the shower safely settled, I turned my thoughts to the vanity and sink. I know we’re only about two weeks away from installing them, so I need to FINALLY figure out exactly what I want.

If you’ve been following this blog, you’ve heard me refer to the bathroom as The Lodge–in honor of the flat-tailed, dam-building rodents that helped the children escape the White Witch in Narnia.  (I don’t call those friendly animals by name on this blog because of a bad experience when I did that on a previous blog.  ‘Nuff said.)  So The Lodge is going to have a rustic woodsy look to it:  river rock floor, wood plank walls, a stone sink, a driftwood mirror, etc.  I see most of it clearly in my mind’s eye, but I’m not so clear on the vanity.

I have lots of ideas collected on Pinterest.  This simple countertop is Herb’s favorite; we’d use some barn wood (a picture of the barn is on the “Narnia in My Attic” Pinterest page) for the counter.  However, I keep coming back to this stump-vanity perhaps because of the stone sink.  I doubt I can find a huge, lovely stump like that, but I think that several logs in a semi-circle could produce a similar effect.  So this afternoon I headed out to the wood pile.

After carefully kicking the candidate logs (kicking candidates–how fun!) to scare away any woodpile-dwelling snakes, I rolled the logs into the tractor loader and brought them to the back yard where I put them on concrete blocks.  Why lug heavy stuff when you can play with a tractor?  “Tinker Toys!” I told Ben and Todd.  I knocked off loose bark, letting the earwigs and things escape, then washed the logs with plenty of water and a little disinfectant.  I need a scrub brush to get off the fungus that has grown under the bark, but this is a good beginning.  I hosed away all the suds on the ground, but I could have saved myself the trouble!

Before long the predicted showers arrived.  Shortly after I took this picture, the showers turned into torrential rain.  It’s a good thing my Tinker Toys are used to being out in the weather.

Big Boys’ Toys

Tags

Attic, Construction, Decor

The guys work 10-hour days Monday through Thursday which is nice because we have long quiet weekends–and I can sleep past 7:30 a.m. three whole mornings!  This morning I went upstairs to see what got done yesterday.

The subfloor is almost finished in Aslan’s tent.

The subfloor is completely finished in the hall.  You can see where the wall will be, in that groove the yellow cord is running along.  The studs on the right are temporary supports and will be removed.

The only part that doesn’t have a subfloor yet is the bathroom.

Things are really quiet up here and nicely dim.  It feels very peaceful compared to the industrious buzz that goes on during the week.  As I walked around I began to notice the tools of the trade and whipped out my camera to list them.  (Hopefully this will help my French readers figure out certain words that might be difficult to Google-translate.)

The air compressor powers the nail gun.  It doesn’t run constantly, but likes to suddenly kick on and startle unsuspecting home-owners and electricians.  The carpenters are so used to it they only notice it when one of us jumps sky high at the sudden loud noise behind us.  Poor Chris said he had just touched a wire that he thought he’d disconnected when the air compressor kicked on right behind him and scared the liver out of him–he thought he’d done something by touching the wire!

The silver nail gun is loaded with its black cartridge of nails.  There’s a giant nail gun, too, for really big nails.  The carpenter’s tool belt and old-fashion nail gun (i. e., hammer) get a lot of use, too.  Zephyr has a Rule about both the nail gun and the hammer, the the sharp, gun-shot sound of the nail gun especially drives her crazy!

The table saw (how would you like to carry that up the stairs?) stands next to a major shop vac.  Todd uses it at the end of every day to vacuum all the sawdust and insulation that gets tracked downstairs into the living room.  That’s one thing I love about having Stuart do a job for us–he has his guys clean up beautifully at the end of every day.  It makes living in a house with construction going on so much easier!

The circular saw gets used a lot, too.  Both of them are in Zephyr’s Rules because they make so much noise.

The saw horses are the circular saw’s inseparable companions–which doesn’t stop the circular saw from being quite cutting with them!

This is one serious radio!  It’s made by a respected tool manufacturer, and you can see that it has some pretty major bumpers and roll bars!  No matter what might fall on it, the guys will never have to be without their country radio station.  I don’t know about the rest of the United States, but down South I think it’s a law that all carpenters listen to nothing but country music.  I don’t mind; they keep it down enough so we can’t even hear it downstairs.

A cordless drill is a wonderful tool.  It’s so much better climbing up ladders and getting into tight spaces without a cord around your ankles.

This huge shop light sheds a lot of light on work areas, can be set on the floor or hung from a nail, and has a protective grill over the glass in case of wildly swing 2x4s or falling chunks of wood.

A shovel for scooping insulation out of the way or serving as a dust pan for big piles of construction debris sits beside a box fan.  No need to tell you what that’s for!  It helps, but even with three or four of them running, it’s still really HOT upstairs during the day.

I’d never seen this tool before.  It’s an extender for an electric drill with a yellow cartridge of screws that reminds me of bullets for a machine gun!  I’ve never seen it in action, but I’m pretty sure they were using it to screw down the subfloor without having to be on their knees the whole time.

The caulk guns loaded with tubes of adhesive were used to glue the subfloor to the joists before screwing it in.  That’s one subfloor that won’t be popping up in the future.

Finally, resting against a step ladder, is a good old-fashioned broom and a scraper for cleaning up the piles of sawdust, bits of wood and stray nails that accumulate during any carpentry job.

On the way out of the attic after looking at all these “big boy toys,” I popped my head in the craft room (currently unusable since the old AC unit was removed) to take a look at my pile of toys.

Those are some of my decor elements piled up in the corner waiting for the REALLY fun part!  But for now I’m enjoying the carpentry part, and every whine of the saw or shot from the nail gun means progress.  Narnia is gradually coming into being!

Onward and Upward!

Tags

Attic, Construction, Permits

Construction started today!  Stuart, Ben and Todd arrived bright and early.  The first thing they did was lay down a red carpet (I mean a drop cloth) up the stairs to the attic.

  Next they laid some plywood decking to walk on–so much easier than balancing on the tightrope of ceiling joists.  (Once, in another house with another builder, we actually had a guy miss the joists and partially fall through into the room below!  He caught himself with his arms, but his legs were dangling into the study.)

 Here’s a shot after the guys installed some extra lighting and went downstairs for more plywood–which they are carrying up the stairs SO carefully!  Not a nick in the wall!

Some of my bilingual readers have had a hard time figuring out what we’re doing in the attic (google translation isn’t always very accurate), so I thought I would try to explain with pictures.  As they say, a picture is worth 1,000 words!  Here’s a shot coming up the steps.  The portion of the stairwell wall that has the photos on it will be cut away to make a more open feeling at the top of the stairs.

At the top of the stairs, you turn left to enter the attic.  The door that opens into the attic will be removed, leaving an open area at the top of the stairs.

Just inside the door, if you turn to the left you will see the HVAC.  It’s going to be moved (out of sight to the other side of the attic), and the rafters behind it will be removed to build the parents’ bedroom in the gable over our bedroom.

If you look to your right along the wall, the area between the dangling vent and the window will be the boys’ side of Narnia with two berths under the slanted ceiling.

Looking on towards your right past the window, this area will have two berths for the girls.  You can see the door in the photo, but soon it will be gone.

Here’s the area behind that door.  You can see part of the plumbing drains that were put in when the house was built, ready to expand the attic.  The bathroom will go here, saving us a lot of money as we avoid installing new plumbing.  The rest of that little corner will be unused–a good place to stuff all the loose insulation the guys are having to remove from the rest of the attic (because they need to see what’s under it.)

Now you’ve made almost a complete circle, and you are looking at the door where we started.  To the left is the corner where the insulation is getting piled up.  The wall to the right of the door (where the light switch is and the plugs are) will be cut down to a half wall.  Beyond the door you can see my craft room.  Zephyr is looking down the stairs.

If you keep looking to the right of the door, you will see the HVAC again–full circle.

So that’s what we’ve got and what we plan to do with it.  As I post pictures of the construction, I’ll try to include shots that show BEFORE as well as AFTER.

It will probably be at least a few weeks before we get to the fun part where you can actually see Narnia unfolding.  Today was exciting, though–a day I’ve been awaiting for four years!  To make it even better, the county inspector came at Stuart’s request for a pre-construction inspection.  He commended us for having an architect’s drawing and an engineer’s input; he approved Stuart’s plan for getting R-30 (or better) insulation in the ceiling; and he didn’t find any problems that would need to be addressed.  I’d call that a GREEN LIGHT!

Onward and upward!

The Best-Laid Plans of Mice and Men: Conclusion

Tags

Attic, Floor Plan, Kara, Permits

In my last post about the plans for Narnia, our best-laid plans had, indeed, to quote Robert Burns “gang aft agley.”  (wiki-translation: gone often awry)  Well, they’d twice gone awry, and so we asked Stuart Bickley, our contractor, to come meet with us one more time on Thursday afternoon.

He wasn’t put out because, as he pointed out, it’s much better to confer about what we should do on this end than in the middle of construction!

We went over his figures together, and what finally became clear was that Plan Two was going to come very close in cost to Plan One.  Yes, the LVLs in Plan One cost more, but the skylights in Plan Two ended up costing almost as much by the time installation and labor were included.

We then trooped upstairs, along with Kara, to take a look at the attic.  As we discussed pros and cons of the two plans, Kara put her two cents in.  She told Stuart her idea of combining the two plans, and he instantly caught on to the advantages of it.  A huge one was not having to install the tricky LVLs in the middle of a bathroom with plumbing and shower height to consider.

And here I must confess that Kara was right all along!  Of course, my objection to her idea originally was that we would still have to cut rafters and install LVLs, but now that we knew that wasn’t more costly, my objection evaporated.

We all got on board with The Plan and began to get excited.  Houston, we have ignition!  

I spent the rest of the evening cutting, pasting, whiting out, measuring and re-drawing lines until FINALLY we had a Plan!

Here it is:

The office will become my craft room.  In fact, we spent Saturday moving most of my stuff in.  I’ll be working at it bit by bit, but I’m excited to have a place where I can go make a creative mess and not bother anyone!  Zephyr has already adopted it and loves to follow me up there.

The rest of the plan is pretty self-explanatory except perhaps the shelves in the open area of the hall.  What we actually end up building in will depend on how the head room works out there.  We all agreed there are just some things we’ll have to wait and see about . . .

Friday I went to the county Planning Office and began the Permit process.  I was then sent a few steps down the hall to the state Environmental Office where they could not find a plan on file for our septic system.  (Mr. Blevins, our septic expert, says that’s no surprise!)  When I stabbed my finger in the Yellow Pages (actually, I looked to see who had the biggest ad), I lucked out by choosing Blevins Septic because they know and like him at Environmental, and that’s going to make things much easier.

So bright and early Tuesday morning, Blevins will be here to uncover the tank for the Environmental inspector later that morning; they’ll pump the tank at the same time.  We’ve lived here four years, and the guy that lived here for three years before had no idea when it was last pumped.  Seeing as it should be done every five years according to Mr. Blevins, I’d say it’s about time!

And if all goes well, Stuart could be here to begin work by late next week. 

Houston, prepare for lift-off!

The Plot Thickens

Tags

Attic, Design, Inspiration

When we bought this place, one of the great things about it was the double-wide trailer out behind our house where our college-age daughter Kara could live.  Recently she’s realized that when she graduates from college she’ll be ready to move closer to town, and we’ve realized that we need some room for kids and grandkids to stay. So the question arose: Should we make numerous repairs over at Kara’s house or convert our attic to get the space we need?  Real estate and financial wisdom came down on the side of the attic.   In order to have enough room, we will need to move over into this dormer over our bedroom. Here it is inside . . .

Here it is from outside.  There will be a window in the left dormer and a “parents’ bedroom” will fill the space . . .

As we looked over the spacious attic with our architect, Ann Aiken, she caught the vision for how it could be breathed into life as Narnia.  The parents’ bedroom will be Aslan’s Tent; the bathroom will be The Lodge* and the main attic (pictured in the previous post) will be the grandkids’ portion of Narnia.  (Of course I know that Aslan’s Tent and the The Lodge were all actually in Narnia, but I’m taking some poetic license and referring to the kids’ bedroom as Narnia.)  It will have the wardrobe entrance, the Lamp Post, the Stone Table and Dawn Treader style berths.  And that’s just the beginning! 

* NOTE:  The Lodge is my name for the residence of the kind woodland creatures that came to the children’s rescue in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.”  They are very large rodents with flat tails, and they cut down trees and make dams.  You know what I’m talking about;  I do, too.  I haven’t forgotten their name–I just can’t put it in this blog!  I did use their name in a previous blog, and unfortunately that innocent mistake brought unwelcome visitors to my blog. In an effort to keep my Narnia safe, I was forced to abandon that blog and start over here.  Please bear with me and just call it a sign of the times.  😦

Over a year ago I was captivated by this photo in Victorian Homes magazine.  This has become my inspiration for the ceiling of Narnia.  I’m not planning on painting trees, just using the dark-blue-to-light-blue fading on our slanted ceiling over the main area of Narnia.  The berths will be clad in paneling to give a ship-shape feel, and the kids will be able to gaze out from their beds at the “sky.”  One of those turtle nightlights will provide the stars.  Strands of fairy lights would look more real, but it’s much easier to change a turtle’s batteries than to climb up to the ceiling and replace fairy lights!

Georgia Lambert’s bedroom, left.  Photograph from “Through the Eyes of an Artist,” Victorian Homes, Feb. 2011

Georgia Lambert’s bedroom, right side.  Photograph from “Through the Eyes of an Artist,” Victorian Homes, Feb. 2011

As the elements of the room come together, I’ll be sharing them on this blog.

Once Upon a Time: The Story Begins

Tags

Attic, Narnia

We bought this house in September, 2008, and moved in early November.

The house had a lot going for it:  twenty-nine acres of hilly fields and woods, two pastures for my horses to graze in, two barns . . . 

. . . and that view out the back door that told us instantly, “You’re home!” 

The house came with an attic that was almost ready to go.  It had electric, HVAC ducts and plumbing.  As soon as I looked in it, I knew that it was our future grandkids’ dorm (even though our first grandchild wasn’t due till December).  Even more, I knew the attic would be Narnia.  I could almost see the wardrobe door leading into it; the lamp post in the middle of the floor; ship berths under the slanted roof; a stone table under the window; and bookshelves down the middle of the room to hold the 600 kids’ books I collected so our children would have English books to read overseas.

Charis was born in December, 2008 . . .

Her brother Kol joined the family in January, 2011 . . .

. . . and still the attic waited, rather like a large, sleepy bear not quite ready to wake from hibernation.  It waited for Aslan to come and breathe it into life!