Bedroom dilemma: more construction time and brighter room, or quicker/cheaper completion?

Things are plugging along in the third bedroom, the soon-to-be nursery at the Old Rowhouse. But the recent work has left me with a big decision to make, and one that will determine whether or not I finish this bedroom as early as next weekend, or add at least a few weeks (and dollars as well as potential headaches) to the project.

I’ve got two walls totally repaired, skimmed, sanded, primed and ready for paint. The electrician finished up the last outstanding projects that represented the last hurdle before I could wrap everything else up. Last night, I took the rest of the plaster down from the ceiling and exposed the lathe, which will stay in place before the drywall goes up since it’s the only thing holding in the blown-in insulation.

As I took down the plaster from the ceiling and the electrician took down the odd piece of lathe to run the new wires in the attic space, I could start seeing daylight streaming down from the dormer windows in the attic. We have two dormers on the front of the house that look into the small attic space at the front of the house, that are more or less decorative, thanks to the slope of the roof from front to back.

Which got me thinking: why not, while the room is a mess and the ceiling is plaster-free, leaving only thin lathe and old insulation between this too-tiny bedroom and a potential extra window, go ahead and knock out the ceiling up to the window and create a new dormer window for this bedroom? This is a pretty common occurrence in rowhouses around here, especially ones that have been remodeled — we saw it in lots of the remodeled homes we looked back in summer 2010. We’d already talked about doing this in our recently-remodeled bedroom next door one day down the road by either: bumping out the entire third of the ceiling closest to the window up (like the left picture below from a Petworth house for sale), or taking the entire ceiling out and removing the ceiling joists, like in the second picture (incidentally from a house we looked at on 10th Street NE in Brookland.)

But there’s a third option, that would be far more practical, less expensive and time-consuming for this room than either of those two options: only knock out a hole in the ceiling a little wider than the window and just frame in a channel up to the window like a dormer.

Once you see the ready-made frame that’s part of the roof truss around the window in the second picture below, you can see how simple that task appears to be. (I took the pictures below during our skylight installation.) But I’ve been at this long enough to know that nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, is ever as simple as it appears to be.

So I need to decide, and I’m looking for help here, as to whether or not I should go ahead and take this on. I feel reasonably confident I could get it done by myself, though I might get someone else to drywall it for me — lots of difficult angles to cover! The biggest obstacle in my mind is time. I was shooting for having this room done by next weekend, and once I get that date in my head and can see the finish line, I tend to be unrealistically committed to it. I’ve even rushed some things in the past or done a task poorly in the past because I wanted something to get done and was close, which is no good.

Here’s the rest of my pros and cons so far.

Pros

Would make the tiniest room in the house feel bigger. This is also a good reason to knock out the whole ceiling or the front third, but that’s just not going to happen. Not now, anyway. Also not going to happen: enlarging the room by knocking out the wall into the neighbor’s house.
Would bring extra light into the smallest bedroom in the house with only one window.
This could be the only time for years that I already have everything out of this room, with the ability to make a dusty mess and no kids around.
If I punch through the lathe in this one square, take a look around and decide that maybe I can’t do this by myself, I can always put the lathe back up and reinsulate that section when I install new attic access in the coming weeks. (The whole attic will get reinsulated then too.)
This would give me a chance to use some of my excellent new tools that have been gathering dust while I spend weeks and months doing menial tasks like scrape wallpaper and demolish plaster.

Cons

Will probably extend this bedroom project by at least a month when it’s all said and done. It’s only January, but June is rapidly approaching and I’ve got tons of other projects I need to tackle before our precious package of cry, sleep and poop gets here — especially the projects that generate any dust indoors whatsoever.
There’s no guarantee I can do this, and I won’t even be able to formulate a proper plan for the framing and structure until I punch through the lathe to the window and take a closer look around. Which means I could end up a) closing it up and calling it a day, or b) having to pay someone else to help.
Would cost more money in material. (Mostly just framing, drywall and some insulation.)
I might discover in my free DC energy audit coming up that the single pane glass up there lets 100% of the heat out of the house. Also, the entire window may be in bad shape and poorly insulated. All the panes are intact, at least.
On second thought, this would create a new window in the baby’s room that faces east into the morning sun with no easy way to cover it. Any way to install blinds with a long cord? Temporary curtain over the window for a year or more? If not, sleeping past 630 may be a pipe dream. It might be a pipe dream anyway, but you get the idea…
Not sure how I’d insulate everything, including the window itself but especially the small space between the new framing and the roof. Similar to my sleeping porch problem, (which will be solved with spray foam.)

So that’s about it. I’d include a sketch of what I’m envisioning, but I can’t draw, so that’s a non-starter. You’ll just have to picture it. (Dormer channel would be right above this existing window, with the cut in the ceiling the same width as this window frame.

So what do you think? Worth the time, hassle, money and potential headache? I’m definitely leaning one way right now, but I’ll wait to say until later.

11 Responses to "Bedroom dilemma: more construction time and brighter room, or quicker/cheaper completion?"

mOm says:

6 January, 2012 at 4:24 pm

The only question I'm qualified to raise is the one about being able to (easily) shut out the light when you don't want it. And that will be often as long as there's a baby/child sleeping in that room.
Rob Mandle says:

6 January, 2012 at 4:30 pm

While I'd selfishly like to see you do this project and see how awesome it looks (always looking for ideas at our place!), I wonder if the size of the room combined with a tall dormer would look architecturally odd? It works in the sample pictures you posted cause the room takes up the whole house and the proportions work well… Not sure if that would be the case in the small room…

I've toyed with the idea of making a loft from either of the two rooms myself to create more sleeping space in a 4 person (two-child) household scenario! 🙂
Cindy Manning says:

6 January, 2012 at 5:30 pm

here I go nosing in again. I would just hate to see you regret NOT having done this now for the sake of (sounds like not that much?) money and/or getting it done the quickest way so you can be done w/ it/check it off the list (I'm good at doing that!). I would get answers to those questions that are pressing/deal makers or breakers and go from there. Rob brings up a point I sure can't speak to. But many a child has been raised in a room that did not get complete darkness. They adapt to what they are used to. (I know, very poor sentence structure here. Please endure, Marty, etc. : )
I am so impressed w/ what all you've done so far. Look forward to seeing it sometime. Just found out a friend is moving to DC end of the month. They are going up next Wed. to find a place to rent near the Metro.
Will be interesting to see what you decide.
@OldTownHome says:

6 January, 2012 at 5:37 pm

I think I'm more on the "don't do it" side of the fence. To me it feels too modern, too open, to much a departure from what the home originally was and still is. I'm all for this sort of thing with your kitchen, and with other rooms, but for some reason I always feel like the bedroom is only of those places where you want it to feel warm, cozy, and original. Just my 2 cents.
Will says:

7 January, 2012 at 1:47 am

Go for it, now that you've mentally completed the project, if you don't do it, you'll never be able to look at that ceiling again without thinking "… if only".

Congratulations, btw
Reid says:

7 January, 2012 at 12:41 pm

No advise here on go/no go, but I will offer a veteran pro tip on the little package of crying and pooping on the way: as long as he/she has food and a place to sleep, he/she will not care if everything on your list is done. 😉
Wendy says:

7 January, 2012 at 8:46 pm

Congrats on the big news!! I'm going to vote no on this one as well. I agree with your mom's comment about light filtration, and heat loss is also something to take into consideration. But personally I wouldn't want to give up even an inch of storage in the attic. Babies may be small, but I hear they come with a lot of stuff. You may find it more valuable to have the extra room up above.
1. Steve says:
  
  9 January, 2012 at 10:17 am
  
  There's some smart city-dweller advice for ya! In the land of the 15-19 foot-wide homes, storage space is king. 🙂 Thanks, Wendy!
Steve says:

9 January, 2012 at 10:09 am

I think we made a decision over the weekend. Thanks everybody for your very smart input!

We're going to give the dormer a pass, mostly for one big reason. The most important "con" really overrode the aesthetics, and that was the need for a dark room for a baby to sleep in. It certainly would make this small room feel bigger, but it would also open up a window that we can't easily cover. The front of the house already faces streetlights that stay on all night, making good curtains a must even at night, and in the morning, these east-facing windows are bright as heck as soon as the sun rises over the Soldier's Home grounds. And this room gets good light during the day until the sun goes over the house, and even then some comes in from the skylight in the hallway and the transom.

But I did decide that instead of the smaller attic access I was planning (22×22), I am going to spend the time to put in a nearly-full size 22×54 pull down staircase in this room, right inside the front door and over where the closet door swings out, meaning that I'll never have to worry about furniture being in the way of the stairs. We're going to need the extra storage space big time, especially once our basement is converted into an apartment. Hopefully I can get some similar trim from Community Forklift to match it to the windows and doors in the house. More on that later.

But thanks for all of the thoughts, everyone! Very useful to help us make the decision.
Steve says:

9 January, 2012 at 10:15 am

Good thoughts here (definitely agree about the kitchen in a historic home), though I've also come to the conclusion that our house is like the 1920's version of a Pulte, Centex, Toll Brothers, whatever production-built house. It lacks all of the great architectural detail that you guys have in your Victorian or in more of the Old City neighborhoods in DC. Petworth was one of the District's biggest from-scratch development projects (like today's subdivisions) and most of the homes here are pretty vanilla with far less of the detail you'd find even just a few blocks south or east to Park View and Columbia Heights. Other than the (fairly cheap for the time) trim around the windows, there's little flourish inside or outside the home, which means we have very little old architectural beauty to try and restore in this baby. Other than the floors, the trim, the banister and the working transoms, that's about it. But your point is well taken.

The only difference being that the 1920's equivalent of today's production-built house is going to stand for 200 years and can be renovated over and over because of the durability of the stock. Today's Pulte/Centex/Whatever homes are stick-built pieces of drywall mansion shite that won't last 65 years. 🙂
Installing new attic access and stairs | Our Old Rowhouse says:

16 January, 2012 at 11:29 pm

[…] making our decision on knocking out the ceiling in the nursery bedroom — we decided it, which you can read about here — I moved on ahead this weekend with installing new attic access and stairs in this bedroom. When […]

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