For simplicity, our main room is currently 10' by 20', the room is a living room/dining room. At some point in the past, it was expanded from an original length of 15' to 20' long. We found that the ceiling throughout was false so we decided to start tearing it down to raise the ceiling from 7' to 8'. Now, in the front, where i mentioned was expanded by 5', the builders actually made that ceiling area vaulted. So, this inspired us to want skylights. We ideally want two of them. However, the expansion seemed like a DIY project because the rafters are not exactly 16" on center. In fact, the two areas we wanted the skylights, the rafters are 15.5" and another about 15" on center. So, my concern is that skylights are wider than 16", at least as far as I can tell we would be looking at skylights that are 22" in width. Being one, or two skylights - will this be as easy as adding header/footers just like you would when building a door/window - just at an angle? or, with this being a vaulted ceiling, do we need to consider adding additional support somehow? With the space in the ceiling, if we had two skylights the header/footers for each skylight would be tied into a single rafter for one side of each window - is this too much stress for a rafter? I can provide some webcam pictures later on if needed.

I would like to know what is the best way to put in interior floor joist in a brick wall. The project I am doing is a end unit brick row house. I am framing up the whole and would like to know what is the best way to put in floor joists. Should I attach a ledger board to the brick wall and put joist hanger on the ledger board or should I put the floor joists directly into the brick wall and put cement around the joists and brick wall.