Lofty Ambitions...
109sqft expands to 218sqft!
We started at the crack of dawn stumbling around making coffee and getting out to C.F. Evans Lumber (Castle Building) for supplies for the loft. I did a quick count of how many 2x4's and 2x6's I thought we needed...then rounded up and then added a few extra. The guys at CF Evans are great. Every time so far they've been helpful with advice and just plain easy to deal with. After ordering my wood I pulled around to load it up on my trailer but one of the guys said if I didn't want to bother they would drop it off at my property in a bit. I jumped on that, put an X on a map and told them about the last guy getting stuck there.
By the time I got back and we got started with waving our hands around adlib'ing the design of the loft the guy arrived and dropped off the wood. He said they added a few extra since some of them might not be great, which I really appreciated.
Cath and I started with a design that had the ladder positioned in front of the door but against a wall...which would have been too tight up at the roof by the time someone got to the platform. Another version had the ladder in the center...but it really blocked things at the doorway. Another had the loft platform take up about 2/3rds of the space...another had it surround the ladder (which would have been a lot more fiddly for the joists/etc..). Cath had a brainwave and we ended up with the ladder in the far corner of the bunkie (kitty corner with the door) and the loft spans the entire space.
The bottom of the rafters are set at 7', which is more than enough space so no-one will bonk their heads even after the floor is in. The 2x6 rafters are set on 2x4 studs attached to the existing studs. They're not going anywhere and 2x6 does let it flex a bit but it's solid enough. The loft floor is simply 2x6's nailed to the rafters. It was a lot of hammering to get all those nails in. Originally I was going to get 10' 2x6's...but they were sold out and only had 14' boards. Thank goodness because it allowed us to span the entire length of the bunkie with a single board.
The ladder is nice. A bit steep to cheat on space but definitely climbable and wide enough to carry up a bin or something bulky. There's room enough up there for 2 cots, storage bins and a couple of little shelves. I think that we're going to go with some mattresses flat on the floor to give a bit more headroom...or else some low cots...to allow for a bit more headroom when someone is laying down in bed.
As soon as the last nail was in the kids took over the space and claimed it as their clubhouse. I was promptly evicted and only permitted to return to hammer in some nails so they could string some lights.
Without 2 kids worth of beds and stuff the ground floor opened back up and it's much easier to get and stay organized, which is key to such a tiny space.
