The Finished Attic

The attic is finally finished!  Last winter Mike Miller put in the doors and trim work and this fall I spent hours painting and decorating to get the guest suite ready for adult children coming for Thanksgiving.  The backstory of the attic:  when we bought the house we didn’t look in the attic.  Only the space over the back bedrooms was accessible (which is now a loft over one of the back bedrooms).  It was hard to see the attic space over the main house, but after the plaster ceilings on the second floor were torn out, we could see there was an amazing space with a 12 foot tall peak.  There were no floorboards in most of the attic, just open rafters.  Mark caught me walking across the open rafters, with a 10 foot drop below me and he nearly had a heart attack, but I couldn’t wait until the plywood floors were in to check out the space!At that point I decided finishing the third floor into a separate guest quarters with a kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom would be an incredible idea.  This also required extending our staircase up another floor and totally blew our renovation budget, but it was worth it.

Below is the view of the living room – I went with a much more modern look on the third floor.  Mostly because the other two floors of the house have lots of antiques to fit with the style of the house, and I am sick of that style and wanted to have some fun with a different look, and also because the vaulted ceilings and wall angles have a more modern look.  We installed new pine wood floors over the plywood and I washed them with the same color that is on the walls.

We have a full kitchen – having an extra stove and fridge comes in handy around the holidays.

The bedroom is very roomy, and the perfect place for a weekend nap (don’t tell my kids or they will know where to find me!).

Since this space will be used mostly by my daughter Faith and granddaughter Sable, I turned the bedroom closet into a toy closet.  There is another closet off the living room.

Below is the bathroom – or as it is known in our house “Mom’s bathroom.” Since I had a separate hot water heater put on the third floor, this plan gave me a private supply of hot water.  The plumber fought me on that idea, and felt it was an unnecessary expense.  Ha!  That man has obviously not lived with the number of teenagers I have and taken as many cold showers as I have. Living with a teenager who can’t understand that a shower could be less than 30 minutes long, this is worth whatever money it cost.  For the first time in years, I am guaranteed to have a hot shower, mainly because I have threatened all children with death or dismemberment if they use the third floor bathroom.

This view shows one of my favorite features, the open brick chimney.  I wanted this to be exposed on all floors, but we had to run a heating vent up against it on the first floor and on the second floor it is in the master bedroom closet (although it is exposed).

Right past the chimney is where the ceiling hits the 12 foot peak and makes this space seem much larger than it is.

I can’t even explain how happy I am to have the third floor finished.  After three years of renovation, I need one space in this house that stays clean and isn’t covered with the gunk of three children or sawdust.  I sneak off and just sit in the clean and quiet of the third floor every so often, in order to preserve my sanity.