Monday 10 June 2013

Building a Studio: The Roof

My main vision for this space was to open it up. I love the shape of the roof, so I am not interested in changing that. It's also not really in the budget. I thought long and hard about putting in a skylight, but decided against it. I am opening up almost the entire north wall with a bay window and french doors. There will be a ton of natural light in there.

                              

 The existing shingles. Cedar, circa 1963. I've never seen a drop of water in the space.


Although the roof didn't leak it just made sense to redo the exterior while we did everything else. Also, we are spray insulating the inside ceiling. So you don't want to pound nails through that stuff.


Opening up the space means getting rid of the joists. For some reason they are spaced every twelve inches. I think it's more common to have them every sixteen or even twenty four? The rafters need to be reinforced to accomplish this. They added 2x6's to the existing 2x4's that were there. These were glued and screwed in.


Beefing up the existing rafters.

Once we get the okay from the engineer we will use a couple cross braces to add some support. 

Next we removed the old roof

Sunday 2 June 2013

Building A Studio: Preparing the Perimeter and Demolition

When we left, our hero, had just given the contractors money and hoped they would return when they said they would. Well they did! Almost. They were a week late. A month prior to that they sent me drawings and then we had a meeting to go over them. So I was pretty sure they would start the job. I was just trying to build suspense for the sake of really, really, good writing...

Surrounding the studio is a 2x4 base. It had to be removed and also any material so there could be about four inches of exposure so it could be water-proofed. This will be done with a special glue and concrete compound.









          Next the overhead garage door had to come out. Then it had to be framed and reinforced.








This step is to seal it off from the alley. This will accomplish many thing. It'll get rid of any dust that comes in from the alley. It will sound proof it. The space will look more like a liveable space and also will make it warmer. I have left over cedar plank siding that is a match to both the existing studio space and the house. I will paint it when it's on.