Framed

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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!

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A Room with a View

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Aslan's Tent, Construction, Design, Floor Plan, Narnia

Today was the 13th day of construction, and what an exciting day!  LOTS of things happened, but the most exciting was the sight I saw as I came up the driveway!

Stuart was installing the window in Aslan’s Tent!  (That’s the parents’ bedroom, if you’re new to the blog.  But stay tuned for a change in plans . . .)  I laid down flat in the grass to get the shot above, but the one below shows a better view of how Stuart was supported up there.

Any way you look at it, that’s a pretty precarious perch!

While I was taking pictures, Herb got home and came over to admire Stuart’s handiwork.  Misty and Hero both came up to greet Herb.  I missed the Heroic greeting, but this tender one made me Misty-eyed.  (Forgive the puns!)

Awww!  Dogs are wonderful!  Okay, back to the Room with a View . . .

To give a better perspective, I walked around to the side of the house.  You can see the ladders holding Stuart’s “scaffolding” where they extend beyond the huge hedge in front of our bedroom.  The stakes holding the ladders in place are chunks of 2x12s that Stuart sawed into a point and drove into the ground with a sledgehammer.  That was a smart safety move since both Ben and Todd were hard at work inside.  (The window at the left of the photo is the master bathroom window.  Our front bedroom window is hidden behind that hedge!)

This photo shows our bedroom (on the right) with Aslan’s Tent above it in relation to the main part of the attic (on the left) where Narnia is located.  It’s above our study window (with the basement windows below in the bottom left corner).

As I backed down the hill to get a shot of the whole house (Narnia on the far left, Aslan’s Tent in the left dormer), Hero and Misty followed me.  They want me to point out that they are the faithful guardians of the house and the entire farm.  Zephyr wasn’t here because she was inside enforcing her Rules!  I found her when I went inside to see what things look like from there.

Here I’m standing in the framed doorway to Aslan’s Tent looking toward the new window.

I walk through the “doorway” into the little hall, and I turn to the left to look at the closet.  Once the back wall of the closet is done you won’t be able to see the rafters anymore, but for now you can still see the rafter marked “cut” that was in this post.

Wait a sec; let me back up and let you see the entrance to Aslan’s Tent better.

Now you can see where the door will be.  When you step through the door, the closet will be on your left in the little hall, and a few more steps will take you into the room.  Stuart is barely visible outside the window, still hard at work!

We’ve walked all the way across the room to the window and turned around to see where we’ve just come from.  The closet is that little area behind the shop vac (which I think looks a little like Artoo-Detoo).  We can now see where the bedroom walls will be, and if the door was in place, we could shut it and hide Ben getting ready to climb up the ladder.

We’ll get back to Ben on the ladder in another post about today, but since this is about A Room with a View, let’s go look at that view!

Don’t mind Stuart; he’s putting the vinyl siding back in place.  Not a bad view!  And would you believe, in all the thinking I did about this attic conversion into Narnia, it never occurred to me that there’d be a great view from this room!  I guess my imagination just couldn’t penetrate that plywood wall and studs that were in the way!

Stuart worked pretty late today getting us “dried in.”  (In case you aren’t up on your construction lingo, that means a rainstorm wouldn’t leave us wet inside.  The siding’s in place and the window can shut, complete with a child-proof latches to keep adventurous grandkids from opening the window too far!

About the time Stuart brought down the first ladder (it had already begun to descend when I got this shot in, so you get an idea how far up there he was), he got a call he said was from “The Boss.”  “I thought YOU were the boss,” I said, just as it hit me.  “Oh, THAT Boss!” I said.  Yeah, THE Boss!  😀

The Engineer’s Word is Law

Tags

Construction, Floor Plan

A lot of commotion went on today.  Two electricians were up and down the stairs, finding which lights are on which circuits, turning them off, cutting off the internet, plus Stuart the Boss was up and down with Ben and Todd.  A fair amount of cellulose insulation is tracked all over the floor, but the guys are vacuuming it up right now.  And we saw the first two bits of wall go up today!

This knee wall has a corresponding one on the other side.  What isn’t balanced in relation to the attic is the placement of walls downstairs.  The engineer said that all the walls upstairs have to sit on a wall downstairs.  So the floor plan of Narnia is going to have to change a bit.  This wall on the left of the attic was supposed to be 16 feet long, leaving plenty of room for two twin beds with a wall between them and a storage shelf at the foot of each bed.  There’s still room for the wall between them, but no room for storage.  However, it looks like there’s going to be a funny bit of space left over which could become a small closet–but I’m thinking the kids will have lots of fun hiding in there!

This change means the parents’ bedroom will now be almost as big as Narnia, but hey, you can’t argue with the engineer!  His word is law!  It also means that the sitting area with bookshelves will be bigger than we had planned–and with 600-plus books to find room for, that has to be a good thing.

We knew all along that the plan would have to be flexible depending on what the builders would find structurally once the insulation was removed.  So this is the first flex.  Not too bad!

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 Best-Laid Plans of Mice and Men

Tags

Design, Floor Plan, Kara, Narnia

When Didi and I first started thinking about finally turning the attic into a grandkids’ dorm, Kara and I decided to draw some plans.  We went up into the attic and balanced on the joists, managing not to fall through the insulation into the house below, while we “measured” how much room there might be by counting rafters.  We calculated the studs on 2′ centers, giving us a rough idea of the available space.  Based on our calculations, we drew out a plan: 

We weren’t sure if we’d need to go into the front gable, so we put a ? on that part.  Obviously we forgot to take head room into consideration!  The place where we put the closet and bath would have no head room!  Now you know why we needed an architect!

Just for comparison purposes, I’ve turned our drawing on its side so it faces the same way the architect’s drawing does.  Here’s her plan (which we got on May 25): 

Here’s what our plan was:

The Craft Room – The only existing room upstairs, on the right of the upper landing.  With its vaulted bead-board pine ceiling and French doors opening onto a private balcony, it will make a marvelous craft room.  Who would not feel creative in a place like this?

Hall – The stairwell opens into a library area with plenty of shelving for all our kids’ books.  Let’s call it the Library at Cair Paravel.  Think gleaming metallic walls and mirrors with comfy cushions for sitting by the low shelves (head room, again!)

Bath – The Lodge, it will be cozy and woodsy.  After all, those infamous creatures’ houses are made of wood.  I get very excited about anything wooden nowadays!

Bedroom – The left hand bedroom will be Aslan’s Tent, a luxurious retreat for parents or guests in an Arabian-Nights-Gone-Wild decor.

Bedroom – The bedroom closest to the library will be Narnia.  As you come up the stairs and turn into the hall, you will be facing the wardrobe doors leading into Narnia. Each side of Narnia will have two ship-style berths tucked under the slanted ceiling–Kings on one side, Queens on the other!  Beneath the window will be the Stone Table, made cosy with cushions and flanked by two thrones, a perfect spot for reading by the big window.  

NOTE to my married kids:  Do not think this means we only want 4 grandkids!  If you give us more, there’s always the attic at the other end of the house!

By the beginning of July, I was quite discouraged.  This project felt like swimming through molasses!  After we got the plans from the architect, we asked two contractors for bids.  That took a while what with summer vacations and such.  Then one contractor wisely suggested that we need a structural engineer to look at the plans.  It took about a week to make that happen.  Even after he came, we still had to wait because his assistant had been on vacation and he had a two-week backlog.  Sigh!

We got another shock when the engineer’s recommendations came back.  Cutting through the rafters to get into the front gable for Aslan’s Tent added a LOT of cost to the project. The plan, as it stood, involved some very funky valleys in the bathroom ceiling and serious support requirements like LVLs.  Translated: $$$!

We decided to go back to our architect and have her come up with a different plan that didn’t involve cutting rafters and installing LVLs in the ceiling.  Luckily, she was available quickly, so I sat down with her at her computer and we looked at her second plan:

Ann did exactly what we asked her to do and gave us a room at the other end of the attic without cutting rafters.  But Didi, Kara, and I felt a sense of loss when we looked at this plan compared to the first one.  It seemed as if the magic was gone.

However, it also seemed to be much more economical to build.  So both contractors came back to rework their bids based on this new plan.  More delays. 

The one bit of progress during this time was that after getting the second round of bids, we felt able to choose our contractor.   Stuart Bickley had the job!

Then there were more delays while we waited for Stuart’s electrician to bid on the electrical work and get our local provider to give their input.

Meanwhile, in early August, we had all four of our children (and both GKs) here together for the first time in five years!  Amidst all the chatter and laughter and activity, we managed to find a chance to get their input on our plans.  The verdict was almost unanimous.  Among the seven (kids plus spouses), all but one preferred the first plan.

Their reasons were different, but they all mattered.  With plan two, they missed the library area; they missed the open hall at the top of the stairs; they missed a central gathering place; they missed the parents’ bedroom being close to the kids; they missed the centralization of the plan; they missed the bathroom close by.  Perhaps the final death knell was the real estate outlook for eventual resale value of the house because of the awkward floor plan.  

After everyone was gone, Kara and I were discussing my discouragement over our quandary.  Plan One was too expensive.  No one liked Plan Two.  “Why not combine the plans together?” she suggested.  “Keep Plan Two’s smaller bathroom where it is and put the open gathering area/library where Plan One’s bathroom was.”  I wasn’t convinced; we’d either have the expense of cutting rafters, or we’d have a tiny library area.  Maybe I could make my craft room serve double purpose as a sitting area . . .

Then Stuart’s final estimate on Plan Two arrived–and it was more than Plan One!  Of course he had included electric work and insulation, but still–!  We were puzzled and unsure once again what to do.  Much as we hated to, it seemed the only thing to do was get Stuart back here and consult.  

To be continued . . .