Make your home spacious with an attic

Having an attic adds value to your home and is a great way to cut costs of adding more room to a house should the need for it arise in future. COURTESY PHOTO.

As space gets increasingly scarce, the home owner is compelled to become creative with the little they have. One of the ways to add more space to your home is to build an attic. An attic is a room at the very top of a house, just below the roof. You might remember it as the place where the Jewish diarist Anne Frank spent two years before being discovered by the Nazi or the setting of V.C Andrews’ thrilling family saga Flowers In The Attic. In real life, an attic is extra space that can come in handy as storage, office, and bedroom or entertainment area.
Asked as to why most Ugandan houses do not include attics in their house plans, architect Simon Peter Kazibwe from Royal architects, says it is because of expense and safety issues. “Most architects shy away from including an attic because of the extra caution required. Remember this is an entire room supported by the house ceiling, if done poorly chances of it falling and damaging the entire house are high,” Kazibwe observes.
He advises that you should inform your architect of your desire to add attic space to your plan so that it is provided for. “There are things that need to be provided for such as the roof pitch and angle that will create about 2.4 metres height, which is the minimum space allowed. Roofs with a 45 degree angle are better for this function,” he says.
He adds that an attic also requires that the typically required ceiling height of 7 feet is met while accommodating the above floor space.

Ventilation and lighting
An attic without windows can be rather challenging to make habitable. Architectural designer Dolores Mukisa Makholo recommends putting in roof windows that can be opened during the heat to cool the attic and the whole house down. “Apart from ventilation, windows allow natural light to fill the space which makes the room feel larger,” she adds.

Access
In this plan, Kazibwe provides stairs for access to the attic but there are other methods that can be considered. To save space one can install pull-down stairs, folding or a movable ladder available in a variety of materials including wood, aluminum, and steel.
Wahab Mbabazi, an interior décor expert, however, cautions against the folding and pull-down stairs. “One should exercise caution while using any of these stairs, you could pull it down and it unlatches too fast if some components are loose or broken,” he adds. He also recommends that the stairs are uniform with adequate tread width. “There should be ample light, handrails on the stairs and a guardrail around the top to avoid accidents,” Mbabazi adds.

Making attic habitable
Mbabazi says the best way to maximise attic space is to take advantage of the walls. Because of space limitations, it might be difficult to use conventional furniture. “For instance if you are creating office space, consider inbuilt storage preferably adding shelving on one wall. This will improve the décor of the room by creating an attractive focal point,” he says. For the floor, depending on the budget, the designer recommends hardwood which exudes warmth and elegance or carpeting that adds comfort and luxury to the décor.

Lighting
There are many ways one can choose to go about lighting their office attic. This is confined space so using use incandescent bulbs will generate more heat turning your office into a sauna of sorts. It is, therefore, more advisable to use LED lighting which is not energy efficient, but safer since it produces less heat. Remember to place the light switch near the entry for convenience.