What to Consider When Converting Your Attic into a Bedroom

We’re always looking to get more room out of our homes, but very few of us are ever looking in the right place. The basement and garage are by far some of the most popular places to try and expand a home’s useable area. However, there is one large area that quite often gets overlooked. If a home has an attic that can be easily entered, then it is essentially an entire space that is going either unused or is solely being used for storage.

By taking the time to do a bit of planning and work to your attic, you can easily transform this large unused space into an office, bedroom, or another livable area for your home. Without even actually expanding your home, you can add another room and vastly increase the value of the home. To help get you started on the right path, we have provided a list of things that you should take into consideration before turning that top floor of your home into an amazing new space.

Get the Go Ahead

An important part of doing any major renovation, whether it is adding a skylight to your San Diego home or building a second level to your garage, you are likely going to need a permit. So before you get too deep into the planning of your attic renovation, you need to make sure that you have taken all of the proper legal steps. Getting permission and permits from your local municipality is extremely important, especially when it comes time to sell your home.

In order to get a proper permit, you will need to have some completed plans to show the government officials. That is why you need to put in some time planning out and finalizing the renovation ideas before you bring them to the town hall.

Make the Ceiling Work for You

One of the most frustrating parts about trying to convert an attic is that the roof shape is often very limiting. Angled ceilings are among the most challenging of the possible designs. Luckily, there are ways to make your angled ceilings work in your favor. By completing a few minor design changes, you can really make the ceiling stand out… in a good way.

Painting the ceiling is probably one of the easiest options. Rather than having a boring neutral color, paint it something bright and visually stimulating. Not only will this make the ceiling look much more attractive, but the lighter color will also help to make the area seem much more open. Another option is to install some minor features that play with the angle of the ceiling. Some angled cabinets that follow the line of the ceiling can add a statement to an otherwise boring and restrictive area.

Adding Light into the Space

An important part of enjoying any room in your home is having adequate natural light. Without proper levels of natural light, any room is going to look instantly smaller and sort of lifeless. The unfortunate part is that most attics do not come with large windows if any at all. This means that in order to get sufficient natural lighting, you will need to take matters into your own hands.

The easiest way to get sufficient lighting into your attic is to install either some windows or a skylight into the roof. This will allow tons of light to pour in, taking the space to the next level. Plus, the more windows and skylights you have in your attic, the less electricity that you will have to use from standard lighting. In addition, not only will the area look nicer but it will actually be saving you money as well. Solatube have been supplying and installing skylights, brining natural light into people’s homes for over 30 years.

Build Wide, Not Tall

This is related to the point about the angled ceiling, but also has to do with the walls of the attic. Because of the unique shape of the attic that is caused by the roof, the walls are often very short and might only be half the height of a standard wall. This means that things like dressers, cabinets, and bookshelves are not going to work if they are the standard size.

This is the time to get creative with your furniture needs for the attic. It’s easy for a slimmer space to begin feeling cluttered if you don’t do it right. Custom-built shelving units can be a great addition to a specialized area like this. But whether you get custom-built or not, you should have a lot of furniture that is short but wide. This way, you still get adequate use out of it and it is able to comfortably fit against the wall.

Plan Utilities Carefully

Hooking up most parts of your home with the proper utilities is usually not much of a hassle. In the case of an attic, it can sometimes be much harder. That is why it is so important that you carefully plan out what utilities you are going to include in your attic space, how you are going to manage to include them, and what you are going to do to replace those utilities if you decide that you can’t install them.

One of the biggest problem utilities for an attic is temperature control. As we all know, attics are the part of your home that experiences the most extreme temperature swings from season to season. So without proper steps taken, this newfound space will end up being boiling hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter.

An easy solution to this situation is to install a solar attic fan into your home. What this form of ventilation will do is help allow for a much easier temperature and humidity transition so that the attic doesn’t become overbearing. And since the attic fan is powered by the sun, there is no additional cost to run it. Simply have it installed and it instantly goes to work circulating hot air out of your attic space. This is definitely a must for those hot days.

For inquiries about solar attic fan or skylight installation, give our experts a call!