Blog Post: What an Old House (Attic Edition)

[aldersprig]

We’re still on the attic… of course we are, we’re going to be on the attic forever…

Well, okay, maybe not forever. 

It stalled for a while, due in large part to a combination of physical and mental illness on my part, but we’re back!

And we’re making things I insist on calling keystones, even though they’re not nearly that important.

We took each rafter (the things that go /\ to make a gable roof) and we “sistered” a long 2×4 to the bottom of it, to provide depth for insulation and some extra structure (considering that the rafters are… not as deep as they oughta be, no matter how long they’ve lasted.

But these /\ joins are in many cases imperfect, so now, with the aid of a hammer, a chop saw, and a sander, I am taking little wedges of scrap lumber and gluing them in between the / and the \ where they meet. 

This means that any pressure from the sistered rafters will have something to push on, rather than just pushing into the air (If the rafters have pressure going –> that way or <– that way.  Pressure going up and down is handled by glue, nails, nails, glue, and three braces nailed to each rafter & sister, and side to side by braces nailed between each pair of rafters)

(we have probably doubled the structure of this attic, to be honest) 

So the process goes: note a measurement on a scrap of lumber, cut the piece, fit, sand down, fit, sand down, fit, glue, hammer into place… repeat.

This is really not that time-consuming a process; I think sweeping down all the cobwebs from the roof took longer. 

But man does it involve a lot of up and down on that step ladder.  

Next after that: framing in the tiny bit of ceiling /–\ that we’ll be putting in there — just enough to put in some new lighting once this is done. 

It’s starting to look a lot like attic….

Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.

Comments

[thnidu]

:-) Sounds real nice.

[ranunculus]

Lots of work, but it does sound like it will make things much stronger. Are you doing anything to make the walls below the rafters stronger?

[eseme]

Yay attic! I know this has been a huge ongoing project.