We have an attic?

The attic has been the part of the house we have chosen to forget about these first 8 months of ownership. As much of a disaster as the basement, but not as immediately necessary, it became a dumping ground for the things we had no place for yet. Or the boxes that still needed unpacking. The previous owners had it crammer full of stuff, and when we took over the house, they had left some of their junk in it. Rather than deal with it when we had an entire house to paint and get move in ready in 6 weeks, Jeff and I adopted the philosophy "Out of sight, out of mind."

This was what the attic look like when we were looking at the house in December:

The dormer that has the 4 little windows and low ceiling. Note: the ceiling is actually painted ply wood. It has to go!

I think they crammed the stuff up here they cleared out of the rest of the house!

I have no words

Plus side? Tall ceilings, even if they do need to be redone.

There are a few things we can learn from these pictures. 1) if we ever finish the upstairs, I think much of the insulation and wall board will need to be redone, because it was just done plain wrong. 2) It is scary to think the previous owners actually have more stuff filling up our next door neighbor's garage. 3) It is also scary to think this was the "clean" state they left the attic in for our scheduled tour with the realtor (but I'm sure this and the bathroom are why we got the deal we did!). 4) Good news, this has good ceiling height in the stair well, meaning Jeff doesn't have to bend over and the space has even greater potential for becoming a 4th bedroom/playroom/office/flex space down the road!

When Jeff and I took possession of the house in February, the situation wasn't much better. Less junk, but still dirty and unappealing.

Yes, they painted the chimney brick red, don't get me started on that one!

So Saturday morning I was laying in bed thinking of the work we are having done to seal up the sides of the dormer in the attic to prevent critters from getting in (more on this work soon). To be honest, it was such a mess up there (the movers had literally just put things in any open space on the floor, so you were stepping around boxes and furniture), I didn't think we would be able to tell if there we any critters up there to begin with. I mean the ceiling in places looks like this:

It is actually worse in person. Who knows if the fuzzies on the floor are from critters or the insulation in the ceiling disintegrating. I decided I couldn't tak it any more. I armed myself with broom, dust spray and cloth, tupperware tubs, and the radio, and got to work. I tried to stage the room a bit, so it felt more welcoming and less like storage, since Jeff and I need to go up there to get clothing out of storage some mornings. Here is the result of my labor with the before shots for comparison.

 

 

 

 It is nowhere near perfect, but it makes the space more pleasant and functional for us to use for now. If you've been following the blog for a while, then you know how much I am itching to tackle this space. But money, time, and practicality, mean other projects in the rest of the house must come first. More on those to come!