How to Turn Your Attic into a Living Space

The amount of living space you have can never be enough. As young families grow the need for more living space often arises. People tend to find themselves needing more bedrooms, closets, and shelves. There are many ways to add living space. An addition is one option. However, adding a whole room onto your home can be costly. Building an addition can cost ten thousand dollars. You'd need to build it all, walls, floors, sheetrock, insulation, and roof.

Why not work with what you have instead? Most houses have attic spaces. The attic space is always on the top floor. Most attics are large enough to create bedrooms from. In many very old homes the attics have been partially turned into living space already. Often you'll find the center of the attic has been turned into rooms and the outsides of the attic space now exists as empty areas behind the walls of theses rooms.

The ceilings and walls of an unfinished attic are what make the room unfinished. It can not be used as a bedroom as it is, but if it were to be finished it would be an interior room like any other. The empty spaces behind walls can be used as well. Closets and shelves can be made for more storage space.

To finish an attic room that is already a room is not hard. It will take some work and some supplies but it is a cheaper project than building an addition. What you'd need is insulation for the rafters and walls. Measure between the studs to determine what size insulation you will need. Insulation comes in various widths. It will be marked r-19 for rafters and generally r-11 for studded walls. Next you'll need either sheetrock or paneling. Both are four feet wide by eight feet tall. You'll need to measure the room to see how many sheets you will need. If you opt for sheetrock you will also need sheetrock mud, tape, and tools. Paneling is cheaper. You'll only need nails and a hammer. Generally people sheetrock the ceiling and panel the walls. However, sheetrock is great used on both ceilings and walls as is paneling.

The last thing you'll need is flooring. An attic floor is generally wood. Planks of wood create the floors in old homes. With a floor like this there are a few options when it comes to finishing it. First, you could simply clean it real well and paint it. You could lay down some vinyl flooring, or you could carpet the space. Carpeting the floor of the top story of your home helps to hold heat in the home, as does insulating. This project in the end can help you to save a lot on home heating costs. Using carpet padding under the carpet helps to save even more.

To make a closet or shelves using the space behind walls is not hard either. Simply identify and mark out the area of the wall where the space is behind it. Check for studs by tapping on the wall. Don't cut through the studs because they help to support the home. Cut through the wall to get to the space behind it. Once the space is revealed finish it like it were a tiny room. To make a closet out of the space simply hand a rod. Use L brackets to create shelves, or build some into the space using two by fours and pine boards. The options are endless when it comes to finishing empty spaces.

Anything can be created out of nothing. Maybe you'd like to turn your attic space into an office or even a game room. The possibilities are really endless. Most homes have little opportunities for expansion. Take advantage of all of the space in your home to increase the amount of living space you have. Thanks for reading and take care!