In mid-March, we started gearing up to convert the loft above our garage into usable living space. Unfortunately, we ran into a bunch of red tape that delayed our plans by about 6 weeks. Instead of providing the usual blueprints and filling out the typical paperwork, we had to have a heating/duct design plan drawn up. We were also told we would have to upgrade our entire septic system to accommodate the additional occupancy that adding two extra bedrooms entailed. All this just to get a building permit!
Well, a new septic system was not in the budget, so we had to prove that we were technically not adding additional bedrooms. (Our home was listed as a 3-bedroom, but one of those bedrooms [the office] had no closet and had a door that opened directly out on to the front porch. We were losing the other bedroom as it would become part of the new hallway for the loft.) The chief building inspector finally agreed with our reasoning, and approved us for our permit. Finally, we were ready to start!
We hired Walt Schaly Design/Build to do the work since we were extremely happy with their work on the garage last year. (Also, baby Gryce was due to arrive in only a few short months.)
The first order of business was to cut the hole in the wall to join our existing house to the loft. This was easier said than done. Since it was formerly an exterior wall, there was lots of wood and spray-foam insulation to cut through.
Cory and Bruce framed in a couple of walls to make 2 bedrooms and a large hallway / storage room.
Mr. Gryce ran all the heating ductwork and did the electrical wiring himself.
They got the job done just in time for baby Gryce's arrival.
We took a couple weeks off, and then we had the guys from Top Notch Drywall come in to do their thing.
Finally, while baby Olivia napped, I was ready to start painting!
We built this bench seat in the hallway to hide the ductwork:
Cory and Bruce came back to do all the trimwork once the paint was dry. It was finally starting to take shape. I couldn't wait to get the curtains hung!
We got Jim Smardenkas from Wilson's Flooring to install the carpet throughout.
The bench seat we built to hide all the ductwork became a handy dumping spot as we began the process of finally moving in....
One area of the hallway is our new exercise / storage room:
Our completed spare bedroom:
And our completed baby nursery:
It has been very exciting to FINALLY move the last of our boxes and furniture out of my mom's basement, now that we have the space in our house. We've also been able to de-clutter a few of our other rooms. There's still a few things to touch-up, including the old spare bedroom, which will be a work / play room, but we're in the home stretch!
