Friday, October 21, 2011

A Flash of Light

After working much of yesterday on the roof and loft level I was just overtaken by the absolutely incredible view from this height.  It was a glorious day.

Last night as I slept I found myself in my sub-consious working on a way to make a dormer for the loft.  First I tried an A-frame type dormer, like we have in our current living room, but there is not enough height to give us much benefit.   So I then tried a flat top dormer.

My original plan treated the loft primarily as a storage area... hence no windows on the side facing the view.  It is now or never if we want to do anything about this.  For the last few weeks I had brushed off my wife's constant ooooo's and aaaah's about the view, telling her we could put in a few opening skylights that fit between the roof joists.

Then as I was waking up I mulled over a couple of different ideas as to how I might do it better.  Today we planned to build the walls and next week set the roof josits in place... so I quickly pulled out the model and started to cut out cardboard to make a dormer.

This shows a nearly flat top dormer... roof slope falls about a foot over 18 feet.

This shows a dormer that would be about 10 feet wide.

I think I can make it work with the TGI's I have on hand... I may have to use some 2x12's on top of the side walls... and get 2x12's for the eaves.

I have posted these photos so that my TGI engineer and structural engineer can look at this idea and tell me the best way to proceed from here.

2 comments:

  1. I love it when I work on stuff in my sleep! I don't know if it's the most restful kind of sleep, but boy does it work. I used to do that quite a bit when working through catering logistics... thinking about it *almost* makes me miss those particular challenges!

    Great idea with the dormer, Pa. I am glad you're taking the time to do this, I can imagine you'll regret it at all. What a view!

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  2. I noticed that view from your post, but I still wanted to see more. And now that I saw it, I must say, it was extremely amazing. I was astonished for a few seconds! You did exactly the right thing on your roof. You added an area as the perfect spot for a better view of the lake and mountains.

    Ronald Miller

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