I am looking to capture approximately 270 sq ft of unused space and have a couple of questions for those with building experience.
I have a typical California home, 2-story, with 19 ft ceilings as you walk thru the front door. My thought is to create a loft from the space that would be accessible from the 2nd floor hallway. Attached are my preliminary plans.
For the most part I know what materials to use, but I do have a couple of questions:
a) What material should I use for green joist? The span for this joist is 18’, but it must also support the orange joist as which acts as a header of 3-4 other joist. Also, how should I attach the orange joist to the green one? My concern is this one joist will have a quite a load but because of the configuration of the lost (i.e. the stairs do not provide a wall for me to tie into), this one joist must support a larger load. And, I do not want to have some sort of support beam (i.e. column).
b) What size material can I use for the blue joist? Will standard 2 x 12s work (I don’t think so, span is to great, right?) or do I need use some type of wood I-beam (not sure the correct term)?
Also, below are a couple of pictures to give you a visual of the actual area.
Any help you guys can provide would be great. I am finalizing my plans getting ready to submit them to the city for review.
Finally a picture of my 9 month old baby (daughter #5)...just too dang cute!
TIA
v/r
Wayne C.