I just framed an addition for a fire job and when I went to go up the stairs to the attic I couldn’t believe the rafters were right at my face. You have to bend down just to get to the attic floor. I’ve never seen this before on any house I’ve worked on.
The owner is 6’4″ and told me what a pain it is every time he goes up there. So I suggested to the builder for us to rip the roof off the width of the stairwell and frame a hipped dormer just like we did in the front of the house. So we did that and the homeowner was amazed that he could actually walk up to the attic.
Has anyone ever seen anything like this before?
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nope
It's so much better to be a pro-active problem-solverinstead of just thinking that it isn't in my job desctription...
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The homeowner told me that the house next door to him had the same layout but reversed and that house you could walk upstairs. So I said to him that there must be a dormer there. So we went outside and sure enough there was. Here's a couple pictures during the framing and one of the outside shot of the side of the house where the stairway dormer is.Joe Carola
The last house we lived in was like that - The roof came down right at the top of the stairs. You couldn't even climb to the top of the stairs, - You had to climb off the side 3 or 4 steps from the top. Unfortunately it was also right in a valley, so I never tried re-framing the roof.
Life is like a dog-sled team. If you aren't the lead dog, the scenery never changes.
I was talking to the builder last night and he told me that yesterday when the homeowner was walking up the stairs, all 6'4" of him automatically ducks his head and they both started laughing because the guy is so used to doing that for so many years he can't believe that he can actually stand up and get to his attic now.He was explaining and showing me the other day his system how he stops at the one landing and bends over to slide boxers in on the attic floor and then has to bend over to walk up the second set to get up there and then grab the boxes and put them where they have to go. Well, he is happy now.Joe Carola
and now the house looks better, too.
much nicer roof lines. nice job.
do you sub from a gc that does insurance repairs ?
carpenter in transition
"do you sub from a gc that does insurance repairs ?"Yes, I do. I've been doing mostly fire jobs for him for 15 years now. Usually when there is a fire the homeowner winds up adding an addition to the house. Like here we framed right over the front porch and that extended the two bedrooms an extra 8'which is a lot. There is a couple other houses on that street, that are like his but they have dormers over the stairway.Joe Carola
Yep. Back during college, in Henniker, NH, I lived in a ~100 yr old house with 10 other guys. The attic had been converted to 2 bedrooms and the stairs from the second floor ran up an outside wall, exactly like your picture. Lots of bumped heads in three years in that house, but going up and down a couple dozen times a day you got used to it.
I have to admit that I bumped my head a few times going up and down. I had to frame the front addition first because we had the roof ripped off already before we had the go ahead to put the stair dormer in and we also had bad weather so we were concentrating on getting that done and water tight. Once we opened up the roof over the stairs we all looked at each other and started laughing because we could walk up the stairs straight instead of this little dance and duck move to get up there.Joe Carola