Vintage Life: Mack-Daddy Man Loft

Greg is so excited about the upstairs in our 1920s bungalow, as this space will be his mack-daddy man loft where he will be able to play and record music to his heart's content.  This space will also act as a guest bedroom when family or friends come to town.

On the far side of that chimney column where you see a window, we will add a full bath with another vintage clawfoot tub.  On this side of the chimney, we'll build a wall and that is where the widescreen TV will hang for unfettered X-box playing and Gamecock football watching.  Greg's office and computer will be up here too.

We had to pull down all the sheet rock and insulation that the former owner installed up here, but we'll re-use that insulation as a sound buffer between the floors.

Remember where we pointed out areas of water damage to the ceilings in the front bedroom and back family room?  We thought it was from a roof leak, but in fact, the truth is much more surprising - and totally disgusting.

See the area to the left of the image above - where you can see old insulation between the ceiling joists?  The former owner allowed a dog (or dogs?) to use that same area on the opposite side of the attic as a yard.

What the... what?!  That's right, there was so much dog poop and pee in the old insulation that it actually caused water damage to the ceilings below!  Barf-a-rama.  I will spare you visuals on this one.

Although it didn't stink anymore because the attic heat had baked all the poop into rock-hard pellets, it is clear that we had to get all this nastiness out of the house!  Guess who got that job?  Greg pointed out that because I am so short (5 foot 2.5 inches), it would be much easier for me to crawl up into the far corners of the eaves.  uh huh.

We didn't actually get an action shot, but of course I wore gloves, a mask, and glasses and used a super shop-vac to suck it all up and dump into garbage bags.  I think I filled up about 50 contractor bags full.  I can't imagine what ServPro would have charged to clean it up.

I also found two perfectly preserved squirrel skeletons and enough acorns to last the winter.  A friend pointed out that I could have sold those squirrel skeletons on Ebay.  It didn't occur to me at the time, but she is right - they go for about $15 each!

Check out the new windows in the back of the loft that look out over the backyard. You'll have to come back to see what happens next!