The Attic Begins

We've been working our way through the spaces at the front of the house up to now.  Because we only have the spaces at the back of the house remaining, we need to do things in a bit more orderly fashion.  So now we're going top down.  Mostly that is to prevent expensive re-work later.  It would be silly to finish the kitchen and later poke holes in the walls because you need to run wiring or move the plumbing stack in the master bathroom above it.  And likewise with the master bath to change something in the attic above it.


So, the next big project on the list is the attic.  I'll be updating the slideshow with new photos periodically.  It already contains before photos along with demolition photos from day 1.

The two floor plans I've attached show the existing layout.  The top one shows the "cold" attic at the front of the house.  It's the large unfinished room in the photos.  Most people are surprised when they get up there; from the street it doesn't look like the space is that big or that the ceiling is as high as it is.  It doesn't really feel cramped like a typical attic space.

The curved wall on the drawing's left is the curved wall in the main staircase.  The one on the drawing's right is the curved wall in the dining room and master bedroom.

The second floor plan shows the layout at the back of the house.  It contains the two servant bedrooms and a small servant bathroom.  The doorway at the end of the hall (top of the drawing) is the doorway into the the front room.

The demolition has already revealed some interesting things (but nothing valuable!):

The studs in the hall walls are oriented perpendicular to what you'd normally expect.  I'm not sure why other than to gain a bit of extra space, because the other studs are oriented normally.

All the electrical is run in conduit.

The plaster is a "blue board" sort of product.  You can see in one picture that the board is only about 2 feet wide and run horizontally on the wall.  It's covered with a fairly thick coat of sand textured plaster.

There are also some places on the brick where you can see quite a bit of soot from the attic fire in the 1940s.

Because we know the attic was gutted by the fire, we know it's not original.  So we don't really have any remorse about totally changing the layout up there.

Stay tuned...