Walking Our Talk:
Lots of Potential

Here it is in all its functional, utilitarian glory.

Four masonry walls, a beautiful bowstring-truss and barrel-vaulted roof, a few industrial-style steel windows in the north wall, glass block in the front and a concrete-block office.

The possibilities feel endless.

3 Comments
  • Johnny

    December 14, 2015 at 5:19 pm

    We need to do an addition on our home and now is a good time since cosncruttion costs (labor) are down considerable in our area. We have a 750 SF home that was a 2 bdrm 1 bath that we’ve converted to a 1 bdrm 1 ba so we have some living space.We want to go straight off the back of our (built in 1945) home about 16 feet. We will enlarge the living space, enlarge the master bedroom and add a mstr bath, and add two bedrooms upstairs in the attic space that will be left. We were thinking of scissor trusses with pony walls about 4 feet in from sides (approx 3-4 feet high) for the two bedrooms.While looking at your site I noted two other types of trusses that might work better upstairs than scissor trusses. They are Double Inverted and Attic Room. My house is 32 feet wide and I will replace the entire roof and just run trusses all the way front to back. The back half (addition) will have the two bedrooms (and a bath) on top. I’m thinking a 10/12 pitch will give me the room needed to get needed sq ft upstairs. Can you tell me how far in I need to come with both Inverted and Attic trusses to do what I need?Thanks,Bob

    • Katie

      March 11, 2016 at 3:30 pm

      Great question. An architect or engineer with preservation experience would be more qualified than us to answer this.

    • Marge

      March 23, 2016 at 1:25 am

      It’s imparetive that more people make this exact point.