The Third Floor

During our recent housewarming party, a couple of friends of ours were very interested with our secret 'store' aka the attic. Some wanted to climb up to have a look. I was more than happy to accommodate them but with the condition that not more than two people climb up at one time. I am seriously worried about how much load the steel beams can withstand! Currently, there are already too many boxes in the attic since that is where we hide all the junk that I can never part ways with. Besides the sentimental goodies, I even have unopened wedding presents, unopened birthday presents for Aiden, my Barbie doll set, our snorkelling gear, our safety PPE (safety boots, coveralls, hard hat), luggages, Aiden's play pen, just to name a few.

For the rest who didn't climb up, they told me to post pictures on this blog. Unfortunately... no way am I going to show you the mess we have up there! So I took the liberty of digging through my old renovation photos and show house photos to share with all of you, just to give you a feel on how it is constructed. Fair enough?

As an introduction, not all semi-ds in Cahaya SPK are able to do this. Generally, the semi-d has to have a tower (double volume ceiling at the staircase area). Therefore, without the attic, my staircase ceiling will be really high - imagine a long chandelier running all the way from the high ceiling to the ground floor... *drool*

Of course, the attic idea was adopted from the Cahaya SPK show house. Which was one of the reasons why we bought the house (apart from the spacious master bathroom). Smart interior designing, I must admit!

This is the show house. My ID contractor was there to take actual measurements for reference. They were trying to measure how high up the attic had to be constructed for head clearance.

Instead of the solid boxed staircases, they used thin wooden strips nailed and welded to steel.

It was during this visit they we found out that the Cahaya SPK show house windows were actually lowered to create clearance for the attic. You see how those two windows are of the same height? They were both lowered! In our house, those two windows are higher, therefore the intermediate landing for the attic actually clashes with one of them.

As for the main landing, this is constructed using wall-to-wall steel trusses. The bottom is then covered with plaster ceiling (plus wiring for the downlights) and the top with wood and then laminated flooring.

This is a picture of the construction of the main landing at our house. You can even see the white PVC pipe which covers the wiring for the lighting.

Another view. See what I mean?

Then the solid wood staircases and handrails were installed, followed by the finishings.

See the window on the right? This is the original height of the window.

This is the window on the left. We had to lower this so that it doesn't clash with the intermediate landing. (It was either lower one, lower both to match or cover it completely. We chose the second cheapest option - lower one!)

The completed attic.