Day 1928: Every little helps

If I'm going to be honest, we spent so much time thinking on the floor plan and maximising square metres, we didn't think too much about the other dimension .. height. As it turns out, with all the required structure and insulation needed, you end up losing a lot of ceiling height. 

For those that have visited any old buildings in the UK (we measure them in centuries here and anything built before the first world war is still considered new), you would appreciate that ceiling height was typically an afterthought. Mostly due to previous generations being shorter and it costing more to heat rooms with high ceilings. Estate agents refer to this as "warm and cosy".

Anyway for loft conversions, the only requirement is that there is at least 1.9m (6' 3'')  at the top of the stairs and nothing for the rest of the rooms. Our plans had for 2.01m (6' 7") .. fine we thought as Care gave up plans for a career in basketball many years ago. 

... but when we went up there, the actual height hit us. Not like it was terrible but we are blessed with high ceilings in the rest of the house and could instantly feel the difference. 

The only options really weren't options:

1. Raise the roof - would require going back to planning permission and stop all the work. Nope.
2. Drop the ceilings on the 1st floor. Done by a lot of conversions but really messy and would require us to move out. Not to mention having to re-do all the great work the guys have done thus far. Also nope.
3. Fit the insulation between the roof rafters (cold roof). Done by many still but apparently creates major issues with condensation down the road. We were guided against this as well.

So for the bedroom, we'll have to just live with the 2.01m. But hopefully it won't feel too cramped with all the windows in place. Besides, most of the time you spend in the bedroom is horizontal anyway.

But the bathroom .. now that's another story....

Given the design of the house - where the part to the back is lower than the main area - we did have the option of dropping floors.. 

It was about a day's work to undo the floor joists and move them down a bit but in the end, we managed to get about 15cm of additional height. Now there will be a step down when you get into the bathroom. Not huge, but to quote Tesco ... 

For reference, here's Care against the new ceiling height. In total it's about 2.15m or 7'. We'll take it.