Roofing and interior work

Sorry folks, didn't realize I let three days pass without a post.

Monday - 5/16/11
Since the carport renovation is on hold pending the outcome of the roofing company's review and estimate, I went back to working on the inside.
Entry Hall
I pulled down the ceiling joists in the entry hall and the two halls that wrap around the fireplace exiting out into the Great Room.  It sure makes a big difference removing the low 7' ceilings.  When you first enter the front door, rather than feel like you're in a cave, you now enter into a space with a vaulted ceiling.

The square opening you see with the brick chimney in background will be covered over and making a great place for some artwork that will draw the eye upward.  It's the logical place to install the access panel for the AC deck but haven't committed to that yet.  I'm also considering adding one or two small skylights to this section of the roof to provide natural light but there's a double studded support joist running down the center that has to be considred.  We'll see.

Hallway roof left

Hallway roof right

I'd really like to take the ceiling all the way to the roof but with the mechnicals deck being right in the middle of the house, I'm limited by AC, water heater, and general wiring requirements.  Duct work has to cross over both sides to get to each room so that's going to limit how high I can actually take the ceilings on either side.  I'll know more when I have an AC contractor come out to give an estimate on a new attic based system.  They can tell me what size ducts have to be and how much space to leave to allow the components to cross over unseen.

By the end of the day, the roofing company's carport 'expert' still had not come out so I stopped long enough to pop off an email to the sales guy that came out earlier.  I cc'd the owner in this time too.  Boy, that generated a response.  The sales guy was on the phone within 15mins apologizing that his guy had not made it out there.  They must have called him away from the supper table because he showed up about 40mins later with his family in tow.  Now there's service!

Unfortunately, he was more of a carpenter and couldn't speak at all about steel requirements.  Still, I'm impressed that someone showed up at that hour. 

Tuesday - 5/16/11
I had a second roofing company come out for an estimate.

He looked like the "Pop" from a Mom & Pop family run business.  I wasn't impressed.  The first roofing company's guy was all over the roof with his tape measure and pad of paper, making notes and drawing a diagram of the roof, the cupola, the carport cover, etc.  This guy did the proverbial look past his thumb at the house, took my word for it that it was some 40' in diameter, hemmed and hawed that he'd have to rent equipment from a Houston supplier in order to install a tapered roof, etc.  He made no effort to pull out a ladder or do anything to validate my comments or what he could see and then proceeded to tell me he'd get me a quote.  He came and left within 15mins.....and was out of the running before he even got back to his truck.  Nice website though!

Bathrooms
I removed the low ceiling joists in the two bathrooms giving both rooms a greater sense of volume.  It's going to be nice.

Closets
I opened up the closet walls in the Master Bedroom.

 One down, two to go.  All of the closets had 30" doors on them making them very dated, claustrophobic, and just plain impractical to use.  Given that each bedroom is pie shaped, you have to think outside of the box and get creative to maximize the available square footage.  My plan is to open each closet to it's maximum width and have custom cabinetry with drawers and hanging space installed.  This will maximize the available storage space and eliminate the need for dresser type furniture leaving essentially just the bed and nightstands.

Back to the carport.
The first roofing company came out again today, this time with their metal carport expert (different than the last guy).  He offered some pretty good suggestions, first and foremost was that he didn't see a need to tear down  the structure and start over.  That's good news because I had already come to that conclusion on my own.  There's  a lot of good framework up there and I'd hate to just throw it away!

He suggested replacing the beams I was trying to beef up with a six inch steel I-beam that would better support the weight across the 24' span.  I offered a suggestion (OK, I got it from the other roofing guy) about "hanging" the I-beams from the wall on a steel "Z" bracket rather than pass them through the wall which would require additional framework inside the wall cavities.  He liked that idea as it puts the weight of the carport structure on the top of the wall where it's structurally more sufficient and given the place is gutted, it's currently visible and easily accessed. 

I approved of the plan and they left to complete their estimates.