Reclaiming Attic Storage Space Over Thick Insulation!

in this video i'm gonna reclaim my attic storage space and we're gonna do it right now [Music] look at all this stuff so much stuff so step one would be get rid of some stuff but i'm gonna skip right to step two and that is create more attic storage so here's what you see when you come up into my attic you look to the right you have all that storage and then you have all this that's kind of open but i could store stuff but i'm going to be doing some remodeling down here super secret don't say anything about it and then over here you have what used to be a nice storage area used to be all nice and wide open and then i had to go and remodel my living room and dining room and when i remodeled the living room and dining room i put this beam in which you can see and to bring it up to code i added all this insulation and the problem with that is the ceiling joists are underneath about six seven inches of insulation right here so typically like these boards you would put them right on top here and you'd have a nice storage area but in order to do that i'm gonna have to do a little more than just add plywood so there's a couple ways i could do this i could just add whatever height this is and put a board probably a two by six on top of here going the whole length of this joist and continue that all the way down we'll take this out uh but what i'm gonna do is i'm basically gonna build like mini walls out of two by threes so i'll build a wall here i'll use the beam as my first uh joist if you will i'm going to have to build that up a little bit and then i'll build a wall here wall here every 16 inches and then i can put my plywood on top of that and when i got this beam engineered i made sure to make it so that it could support light storage which is what this is going to be oh every attic is different i know that mine is capable of supporting this weight and you're just going to have to figure out if yours is before you do this the point of insulation or i should say the way it works is you don't want to squoosh it if you squish this in to whatever cavity you're using it for that kind of defeats the whole purpose of the insulation it's made to have air gaps that's what helps it to insulate so i'm going to try not to crush that as much as possible and put the walls in between them so i'll have the same r value that i do right now so i have kind of a good idea of how i want to do this so i'm going to go get the materials and we'll go from there well that was expensive 423.81 the 2x3s are 498 a piece and the plywood's 2745. and i got osb 7 16 the cheapest plywood they had this is january of 2022 happy new year uh hopefully this doesn't go on much longer i hope the prices come down but it is what it is i don't see many other options in order to do this job i saw these like legs that you could like attach to your ceiling joists they sit on top but then you still have to buy the plywood and those alone were like 300 bucks and i don't even know i'd probably need two or three of them to cover this whole thing so i think this is the cheapest solution i really want this attic storage space back so we're doing it i have a scrap 2x3 and that will give me enough where i'm not crushing that insulation down five and a half inches a two by six would have been perfect but i didn't want to put them on top of here all the way across eight feet because i would have had to pre-drill halfway through the thing and then drill into this i think building miniature walls is going to be easier and more stable this is going to be my first joist the platform is going to start right here so i'm going to cut my first wall at 37 inches i've got two of these at 37 inches and the reason i did two by three instead of two by four is just to save money in case you're wondering so there's my top and bottom plate for my mini wall and i'm going to measure 16 inches 16 inches mark them this and cut my studs so to cut my studs i need the total height of this wall to be five and a half inches so this is my top and bottom plate that's three inches because they're an inch and a half a piece so five and a half inches here minus three inches one two three two and a half inches that's what i'm gonna cut all my studs at just to make life easier i made a mark on my chop saw you can also use a stop block two and a half inches something that i just realized is this is a two and a half inch block these are two and a half inches exactly so what i'm thinking of doing is just making these solid make it like a mini i-beam almost [Music] i got my two by three on top there i still need to screw it down put my piece right here right in the middle of that beam cool so then when i put my insulation down maybe just like that plywood we'll go right over that cool i can attach it two and a half inch construction screws screws in here so measuring for this next one i want it half on that joist down there so i'm going to make it 94 and a half and i can adjust it here i don't mind if it's hanging over or half on that way down here as long as it's half on down there so i'm gonna cut one two three four five of these for now and bring them up and for the interest of saving on material i'm gonna try and build these with the two and a half inch studs or blocks and hopefully i don't split them we'll see how it goes [Music] um stop every time [Music] all right and put it half on the ceiling joist right here [Music] [Music] try to make the insulation nice crush it down without crushing it down too much so now here's a closer look at what i'm doing i'm putting screws like this down into the joists about every other one and what's gonna hold this together really is when i put the plywood on top and screw it it's not gonna go anywhere there'll be no lateral movement so i'm just gonna continue this way i'm not going all the way to the end but i'm doing one two three more on that side okay that's as far as i'm going to go right there let's get a piece of plywood on here i want to make this a little easier to walk around up here so here's the thing about the plywood there is no way a 4x8 sheet is going to fit up this small ladder and in fact even a half sheet 4x4 will not fit so i'm going to rip these the long way and bring them up in two foot by eight foot sections or whatever my cut has to be two feet two feet and cut [Music] this is going to take a while with two foot sheets like this but that's all i can do and i'm just gonna use inch and a quarter drywall screws because they're cheap and i have them they will do just fine i changed my mind already i'm gonna do a full eight footer here and it's gonna extend to about here about another foot off of that i'm not gonna put another mini wall underneath it uh it's just such a small space that you're not gonna be able to walk there to fall through the ceiling um you hopefully you don't roll over that way and unless you're stacking up gold bullion over there which i have none of we're not gonna have any issues it's just gonna overhang i think it'll just look a little cleaner so i'll put full eight footers that way i'll use this for a cut so i'm gonna take this out and bring up an eight-footer there we go looking great so we've already added 48 square feet of extra storage space and it's really not that bad gonna have to duck your head but it's fine and what i'm gonna do is continue this way i'm going to do all of this with the same straight seam like this if this was structural or a finished floor or something i would be staggering the seams here and i kind of wish i was staggering the seams that's just me but it's going to be easier to run these out plywood this whole thing and then work my way from there and come back this way because there's a spot over here that i don't want to cover because i have to do some work there keep on trucking okay it's the next day and i got myself a nice bright light so we can actually see what's going on should have done that to start this is way better so my next steps are i'm going to fill in that piece on the beam i'll just measure and cut 2x3 attach that and take a look at this almost made it i only have eight foot stock so if i i'm not gonna run out and get ten footers but what i'm gonna end up doing is just making an eight foot mini wall like i've been doing here and then i'll add a two by three block to each end kind of like that and that'll make up the difference so i'm gonna do one two three four five of them at eight feet plus those blocks and cut my piece here got my first split that's what happens when you use pieces of small especially when there's a big knot like that so so keep that in mind [Music] well this is looking awesome that right there is 128 square feet of storage that i have reclaimed so far awesome remember the only reason that i am cutting these sheets is to be able to get them up here so what i'm doing is i'm ripping them in half and then i'm butting them together see if you can see the cut if you put them together the same way it'll be nice and tight you can't even really tell that they're a cut piece just a little tip for you so time to do the same thing on this side [Music] very nice i decided to use that cut piece over here [Music] all set i stopped right here i left these long for the future if i want to add more i have some wiring and stuff to take care of under there that's why i didn't want to cover it and again like i say in most of my videos there are a bunch of different ways to do this it depends on your situation what your attic is like if it is able to have storage above it uh i could have used two by sixes and gone all the way across but then i would have had to do them every 12 inches because if i did them 24 inches with 7 16 plywood they would bow too much but then i'd have to step up to three quarters if i wanted to do 24 inches on center and if i did 12 inches on center it would have been more money so there's all kinds of things that you can take into account and just do it in a way that makes the most sense for you this made the most sense for me and i am thrilled this is kind of a special video for me because this video is the first one since i hit the milestone of 300 000 subscribers so that is insane i can't even like put into words how i feel about it i never would have thought i would have been here when i started this channel so just thank you a million times thank you i didn't want to make a dedicated video about it i wanted to make a video that you're used to seeing and the reason that you subscribed so just wanted to bring it up and tell you how much i appreciate it and if you're not subscribed this is the first video you're finding of mine consider subscribing i make all kinds of home repair videos time lapses and i don't plan on stopping anytime soon in fact i just got a whole bunch of new video and audio equipment to take the production value up a little bit we'll see how it goes so i'm looking forward to the future and i hope you are too if you want to see more videos like this you can click hereish and hearsh check those videos out and as always thanks for watching i really appreciate it [Music] you

Channel: The Fixer

Views: 774,423

Keywords: the fixer, adding attic storage over thick insulation, attic, insulation, diy, home improvement, storage, how to, home, house, attic storage, do it yourself, renovation, how to install, attic insulation, installation, install, insulate, diy ideas, renovation ideas, how to fix, how to build, remodel, energy, boarding, attic floor, attic sub floor, build, reclaim, storage solutions, storage ideas, attic storage diy

Id: cUGl4o8uUos

Length: 19min 40sec (1180 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 17 2022