Equipped room in the attic can significantly expand the living space of the house. Often the attic floor turns out to be the most comfortable room in the house and subsequently is reserved for a children's room for games, a living room, and sometimes even a bedroom. The ideological inspirer of the technology of arranging the space between the ceilings and the roof of the house for a living room is the famous French architect F. Mansard (his name has since been the term that defines this space).
Preliminary work and planning nuances
Before making a room in the attic, the landlord must decide what kind of room he wants to equip under the roof. After that, you can start planning. If the attic in a private house is not available at all, then attaching the attic will be a priority.
If it is available, it is worth considering the optimal height: if it does not reach two meters at the very minimum point, the roof of the attic floor must be raised. After its raising, on the floor there are low extended walls (about 1-1.5 meters), which makes the room more comfortable for life.
Only after the height is optimal for a normal living room, you can proceed to the second stage of development.
The main stages of work
Joining an attic with your own hands is impossible without building a staircase. Usually the staircase is located in the corridor or hallway of a private house. The best performance material is wood, because it is durable, environmentally friendly and decorative.
At the second stage, you need to equip the windows in the future room. If the window is located not in the extended wall, but in the roof, it is worthwhile to make a strong wooden frame for it, able to stay in the roof and withstand the load of precipitation falling on it (snow or rain). The gap formed after installing the window between the window frame and the wall or roof must be immediately insulated with your own hands.
At the next stage, the attic room should be equipped with a frame. Both the walls and the floor of the future room are sheathed with a frame. In addition, a heater is placed between the crate and the casing. At the same stage, electrical wiring and electrical components are laid, after which it is worth carefully considering the location of outlets and communications in order to make holes for them in drywall with your own hands.
The last step is the decoration of the room, which takes place in several steps:
- installation of drywall boards (for a stronger fortress, a second layer of drywall may also be required);
- putty and sealing of slopes and cracks between walls and window and doorways;
- reinforcing joints and masking joints between plasterboard sheets.
Despite the fact that the conversion of the attic to a room, at first glance, seems quite simple, each of the stages of work has its own nuances, especially with regard to the thermal insulation of the attic floor.
Attic insulation
This is the most responsible measure for equipping the room in the attic with your own hands, because heat loss through the roof of the house, without proper thermal insulation, is simply colossal.
The following materials are suitable for attic insulation:
- Polyurethane foam;
- Styrofoam;
- Mineral or stone wool;
- Expanded clay (they only insulate the floor of the attic).
In the process of attic insulation, the following stages can be distinguished:
- arrangement of the lathing (installation of ceiling beams on which the floor is laid);
- laying in between the beams of the selected insulation;
- if you choose polyurethane foam, it is enough to blow it out in the gaps between the beams, without preliminary laying the waterproofing, because this material repels water well;
- if mineral wool or expanded clay was chosen as a heater, it is worthwhile to lay a plastic waterproofing film under the material with your own hands;
- the final stage of attic insulation is the arrangement of the floor on the finished crate (for this purpose you can use plywood sheets, although the best option is ordinary boards pinned to the floor slabs).
Decoration and decoration
After the thermal insulation of the floor in the attic is successfully completed, you can proceed to the assembly of the room box. It is assembled from bars covered with crate and lined with lining. Between the bars of the box, a heater is also laid.
After the box of walls is sheathed with sheets of drywall, you can proceed to further decoration and decoration of the room.
First of all, you need to figure out which room will be there:
- children's play room (in the children's room, as in the bedroom, warming is of paramount importance);
- library;
- gym;
- recreation area: billiards, for example;
- workshop;
- utility room or dressing room;
- bedroom (in case there is not enough living space in the house), etc.
In fact, the attic space can be equipped completely for any room, including even a bathroom or kitchen. In addition, the space of the attic floor of the house can be spent even more rationally and even divided into several zones and allocated for each separate room.
If you equip the attic for a nursery or office, you need to worry about quality lighting: the windows in this case become large. The location of the desk is determined by the location of the window.
Location in the attic does not dictate any special design of both the children's room and the study: it can be the same as in ordinary rooms.
Setting up an attic for an office is a great idea for those who, on duty, have to work a lot at home at the computer. The attic floor will be the quietest place, allowing you to concentrate on work without being distracted by various annoying factors, whether it is a washing machine, vacuum cleaner, children's cries, etc.
Even during the time when the attic will be connected and the planning of further practical use of the floor, it is worth thinking about lighting. Ordinary chandeliers for a gable roof, of course, are not suitable, but lamps installed on walls or roof slopes are perfect. It is better to install several lamps in different places.
If you are embarrassed by wooden beams, you can camouflage them with sheets of drywall. Most often, the owners leave them in sight, finishing as a stylized detail of the interior.
However, if you do not want to come up with any special design for the attic room, it is quite possible to equip it in the same style as the rest of the rooms in the house.