Loft Conversion: It's Done! (Well, Pretty Much)

You may recall we had an issue with the stairs and head height?

Well, the solution was to cut the newel post at just enough angle to give enough height on the stairs (required by Building Control) without compromising the structural soundness of the new staircase.  If I was fancy, I'd put in an arrow to show what I'm talking about, but I'm not fancy.

Always required by Building Control (since the stair tread width doesn't have the full head height it used to) is a hand rail.  It cost an extra £300 to fix the issue (ouch), but better than some of the other alternative discussed.


Here Margaret, age four, is showing you the new stairs to the loft, and also how she now has to hold open any door in the house because we have these super-annoying-but-required-by-Building-Control self closers. 

Close-up of these super-annoying-but-required-by-Building-Control self closers.  Makes life a lot more difficult for the cat (who has gone missing, by the way.  I think he's fed up with all of the building work), little fingers, and by extension...me.


Up the stairs is the landing before going into the bedroom.  (I believe also required by Building Control.)  What we're looking at is the £17K.  The stairs and the dormer are basically what cost the most on the build.


As a reminder, before the dormer and stairs it used to be a ladder down to the floor beneath.

The guys put in some storage on the landing.  Will be filled with books soon.  (They build the space specifically to fit those three bookshelves from Ikea.  Maybe someday we'll make them look a little more custom.  Not today.)


Right now the converted loft is a guest room.  Sometime down the line when the girls are older, perhaps it will be come a regular bedroom.  At some point we plan to put in a built-in dresser and wardrobe.  But for now, there's a fair bit of storage in an  area that has been boxed in with access.  The kids' excess toys are behind the wall, so it's kind of their favorite area in the house.  Maybe I'll paint it to look like a house someday.  But not today.


Here's what the area looked like about a month ago.

And now.

We got an en-suite shower room (in American speak, that's another bathroom with a shower instead of a bathtub).   Because of the funky angles of the roof, the porthole door seemed like the best door-with-glass option.

It's a tight fit, but we managed to get a full-size sink, shower and toilet in there.  Margaret is modeling in the room, for your pleasure.  (Note:  Same floor tiles we used in the downstairs toilets.  We had some left over and we're able to source the extra we needed.  And we like them.)

Here's a photo of the shower room Margaret/model-free.  We only had £750 in the budget to source all of the sanitary ware (toilet, sink, taps, radiator, everything for shower and tiles) so had to scour anywhere we could to get a good deal.  Ebay, gumtree, negotiating with vendors and even getting a new toilet seat gratis from one of our neighbors brought us in slightly over budget at £884. We'll get a few other things in here, like a shower mat/rug and mirror.  Someday.  But not today.

I'm not a great photographer anyway, but since it's a tight space, I couldn't figure out how to photograph the shower.  Here's my best attempt.

We're now a three toilet house!  To get the plumbing for the toilet, it required some, erm, creativity.  Originally the plumber suggested a macerator, but NO.  Instead, they had to drop the soil pipe down into our family bathroom, and connect it up with the soil pipe there before it could go outside.

Here's a photo of the family bathroom, with the soil pipe and connecting bits all boxed in.  Niall said it makes him feel like we have a new bathroom downstairs, as well.

In case you're wondering (and you probably aren't, unless you're Niall), this is what the family bathroom looked like before the retro-fit for the loft.

Okay.  back upstairs to the loft.  The bathroom has taken up a chunk of the room (well worth it, in my opinion), but we still have room for a little desk/study nook around the corner.  With a big sky light!

And room for a double bed.  We'll add some pictures and mirrors and maybe lamps and other accessories someday.  But not today.


Another view.  (We left the room behind the exposed oxters before boxing in the eaves.)

Shall we do a little before and after, just for fun?

When we first bought the house.

Phase 1.  (Before we put in the dormer, bathroom and stairs.)  Sadly, we had to lose the exposed chimney due to Building Regulations.  (Had to put in sound proofing along that whole wall.)

And now.  Guest rom with a bathroom.  Wasn't that fun?


As of today, we're looking at just over £32K all in for the conversion.  We'd love for you to visit.  Thanks.