One of last winter's projects was to
turn an old, unused attic space
into a new master bedroom in a
home in Montpelier, Vt. The job
was a typical case where the homeowners
needed to renovate an under-built, out-of-level
space on a tight budget. As with much of our
remodeling work, we had to come up with costeffective
solutions to the structural problems.
Roof
The most glaring problem was the roof framing,
which was more than 100 years old. The
rough-sawn 2x6s, placed on 30-inch centers
(more or less) were much too small to carry the
local snow loads, even had they been placed
more closely together. In addition, a major fire
in the 1950s had