Remodeling a Garage: Structural Modifications

Video Transcript

"So we're back at the Vine Ridge house and it's really exciting because, now we've got the walls off and we can see what's behind. We had some exciting things evolve. As I was leaving the property, I noticed that there was a second story window and I pulled back around, and talked to our contractor and said "is there any reason why we can't include that second story window?" So he said "I'll call you back," and what we discovered, was that the ceiling, that we had seen, was being held up by just little two-by-fours. There were no load bearing joits, so this is not something you want to play with. Don't be ripping down a ceiling, on your own, make sure you have a licensed contractor there saying yes you can do this or no you can't. We had great news, it was just being held up by little two-by-fours, which is essentially what you're seeing here. Two inches by four inches. They were just belts coming across and they were holding that ceiling in. In order to discover that though, first we had all this blown in insulation, which the guys will show you later, that our contractors had to go in and shovel the insulation out, to see what we had and that was all done from above, in the attic. You have to be very careful when you're walking in attics because a lot of times, there's nothing there but drywall and you can go right through it. Exercise caution, have somebody that knows what they're doing, when you go up there the first time, get to know your attic before you start walking around in it. It's advisable to bring some wood plank, so you can place it between the joits and walk, so you're not in danger of going through the drywall. Again, total hazard, to do that on your own. The guys were able to take the insulation out, from on top of what we were looking at the ceiling here, see that it was just these two-by-four joits. We would have been looking for a lot bigger boards, bound together, creating a more of a load bearing structure to that. That would have told us we can't just take it down. There are ways to do that but it probably would have taken more money and more time, none of which we want to play with. We have a limited budget here we're trying to stick within so, it was, again, really good news, for us, that we didn't have that and that we were able to go up and you're going to see that height later. Really changed the whole face of the room. So now, even though we have a long skinny room, we have a long skinny tall happy room, with an extra window and a light is very important to me. Whenever we can access light, you can't go to Home Depot and purchase light, one of the best things you can do is just let the light in a room. Often times it's just as easy as opening some blinds. You can change the room just get used to your room with more light and less curtains. Again, you can't buy light, natural light. Now, we've gained an extra window, we've got a more well lit room. "