After just having my 3rd child my husband and I have decided that we need to floor our walk up attic and make it into 2 rooms - one a bedroom for our 11 year old and the other a family room - there is approximately 1000 square feet up there unused except to house junk - my question is -

How hard is it to do yourself????

I'm not afraid of hardwork - and am the one to fix/put things together/and repair - I know that we can't afford to pay someone to come in and do the work - and I personally don't think it should be that hard - my husband on the other hand thinks it will be too hard to do.

Please be honest - I need to know if I should even attempt.
Thanks

 

Contact your local building inspector before making any plans to see if this is a viable project. Many attic spaces were not originally designed to support living space. You will need to contact the building inspector for permits and inspections, so you need to get involved from the get go. Building codes tend to vary from area to area.

 

If there are no windows in the attic, that will probably be your first problem with the code people - no means of egress in case of fire.

 

I have had a contractor over who has told us that we could floor it and make it into two nice size rooms - he just wanted way too much to do the job. We have 2 windows - one on each side of the attic. One of the reasons we bought this particular house was because we would have the capacity to expand if we neededwanted to a a later date.

 

What size are the rafters (which will be your attic floor joists)? How far apart are they spaced and what unsupported distance do they span? These questions must be addressed to determine if the attic can support a floor and the weight of occupied rooms.