My Summer Project - Building a Loft

This year it was impossible to go Diving to a warm place so I took on the assignment to build a loft for my daughters room - it has been on my To-Do list for long enough... so this is the End Report of "How To Build a Loft"

Since I am a mechanical engineer, I started with a pre-engineering study to define what kind of solutions I would need to come up with to fulfill the End User requirements. Turned out there were surprisingly few requirements, so I did a few draft drawings to show how the Loft would look like - and we checked the local building rules and regulations to see if there are any limitations to take into account as well.

After the pre-engineering study was approved and financial close achieved I started the basic design to get the initial BoQ and moved directly to detailed design how to make the joints to the loft itself and the storage compartments to the stairs.

Lesson 1: Always get the approval for the designs in writing...

The final designs were approved and construction phase started on my first vacation week - I got the needed parts from the local hardware store and recruited child labour (= my daughter) to do the painting while I took care of using the heavy machinery to cut the pieces to size.

In a very early stage I understood that the designs needed some minor adjustments as the End User requirements were pouring in - just like you would expect in any normal project - so I ended up making several additional trips to the hardware store to accomodate all the changes....

Lesson 2: you cannot underestimate the value of good designs

Took me and my crew a week to get to 80% readiness - and I needed to recruit more labour (= my wife) to paint all the 100m of the 28x28 bars needed for the railing and for the stairs - unfortunately this lumber was only available 160km away directly from a small saw mill giving me a half day of relaxing in the car and very friendly service.

Lesson 3: use Plan B not to delay the project

But now, after almost 2 weeks of work it does look pretty nice - still some minor finishing to do, but I do have a few weeks of vacation left...

Lesson 4: it takes 50% of time to get to 80% readiness, but the last finishing can last forever..

And yes, you may copy my drawings if you want to do a loft yourself, but there must be an easier way than what I used....