The New Dormer

Work is progressing and the house is starting to take shape.  One area that really needed attention was a small area upstairs by the two old bedrooms.  The original house only had two bedrooms upstairs...that's it!  Neither one had a closet so a TINY little closet was put in between the two bedrooms.  You can see it pictured below.  The roof slanted in it and you could hardly get a coat hanger in it but it was a closet and at least a little storage space.

That little space upstairs was really dark so we thought a dormer window would be perfect to let in light and open that space a bit.  The original engineer who drew up our plans put the dormer in the plans but was skeptical weather it was actually possible to put on there.  These old homes were built long before any building codes.  The bedroom doors weren't even framed with headers!  Our contractor looked at it and had his doubts.  We decided to reinforce a couple things and go for it.

Here's another view of the before.  Even in the day we had to keep the light on to see up there.

Here they are tearing out the closet and roof.

You can see the contractor put headers over the doors and framed them correctly and then put a large beam between the two doors.

We had a gaping hole in the house for a few days and of course it decided to rain!!  Never fails!!

When it was all said and done it made ALL the difference!  I love the dormer and it lets so much light in!  It made a nice little area up there too.  I may put a desk or chair and book shelf or something there.

And look, no more funky wallpaper!