April 30, 2009: 

Ok!  Here we go!  The building permits have been secured from the town's building department, so we can start the remodeling!

The layout will be placed in this portion of our rather large attic.  The space as seen here measures 43 ft. x 12 ft.  If it looks like the ceiling is too low - trust me, it is not.  We have 86 inches of clearance running down the center of the attic.

The previous homeowners only finished the project up to insulating the space.  So I initially thought that I would just have to wire for power and lights and finish with drywall.  What I discovered once I starting investigating, was another story...

The "knee walls" running the legth of the attic were not square or to code, and not a single stud used the same construction technique as its neighbor!  The walls will have to be completely redone.  That being the case, I decided to move the left wall back 2 feet to turn the 43 x 12 space into 43 x 14.  And since I would need to rip out the old insulation for construction, I'm going to replace it with roughly triple the insulation.

Speaking of heating and cooling.  Since I am working in the attic, large temperature fluctuations can occur throughout the course of the year.  I will be installing the necessary systems to keep the temperature stable and the air dry.

You will also note the chimney in the center of the room.  The working layout plan calls for a mountain run around that chimney in a way that will conceal it completely.  Staging will be placed on the back side of the chimey.

May 9, 2009

When I started construction, I discovered that the placing the south wall 2 feet back down the entire length of the wall from its original location might not be the way to go.  I discovered a few vent pipes, that while easy enough to move, did not in fact have to be moved for the layout plan to succeed.

So instead, I'm going to build the wall in three sections.  This section here is actually set back 2 feet 10 inches from the original location, and gives the track turnaround 10 more inches to play with. 

The stretch behind the chimney will remain at it's present location thus avoiding moving the vent pipes.  And the final stretch closest to the entry door will most likely go back 2 feet as planned - unless of course the layout plan I'm currently massaging needs something a little different.  (See the layout page to see what I mean.)

Although not visible in this picture, the entire wall opposite the one in the picture (the north wall) has now been rebuilt.  I've been working rather a bit in the attic these last few days and got a lot done.

Check back for more progress!