BEFORE
When we bought our home 7 years ago, the upstairs felt like it was mostly unfinished, other than one room – the guest room. Our first move was to finish the open attic room, dry walling it, and adding electric and flooring. We did that almost immediately when we moved in, and it then became Charlie’s bedroom. In the rush of day-to-day life we ended up leaving the rest of the upstairs mostly as-is, ignoring this large chunk of unused space at the top of our stairs. It became a dumping ground of toys, workout equipment we didn’t use enough, and clutter.
Finally, at the end of 2023, I felt ready to tackle fixing the space up. I envisioned it light and bright, with a floor to ceiling bookshelf, housing games and books and creative projects. I wanted the space to feel like a cozy nook, and hideaway from everyday life where we could be creative together as a family. The first step was of course to add skylights! I had installed VELUX skylights in the A-Frame upstate, 9 to be exact, and we absolutely loved the ease of install and ease of use! The skylights are solar-powered, and the best part is that they have built-in solar powered blinds, so there is no electrician needed, and on bright mornings, we can just close the blinds!
For transparency and planning purposes, if you are also interested in installing skylights, I wanted to share the cost breakdown. The skylights themselves cost $2100 per skylight. I then had to pay the roofers for the install $2400, and the cost of the wood they used was $653. The entire cost of the project was around $10,000 – including the painting that had to be done after they were all installed. The skylight installation took two days – and my home was only opened up for a few hours, so we did not have to leave or move out in any way! The rest of the finish work – like putting the drywall back up and framing out the new skylights took another few days. My home was back to a cleaned up, normal space in about 1 week.
It made me wonder why I waited so long to make the change! I wish I had done this years ago! One of the big changes that occurred that I did not realize would happen is the new added light to our hallway downstairs! We have light pouring down the stairwell now, which is so beautiful!
*Thanks to VELUX for partnering on this post!