To start I have never attempted anything even remotely this involved or lengthy. I can learn most things from youtube and I have built simple structures before like deer blinds but this has been a lengthy and challenging project. I started in June of 2023. I have been eyeballing this project since we bought the house and finally got started on it. I think it might be done and ready for use by the end of march.

The only thing I had done before these pictures was remove a small attic access door and replace it with a full size door and layed a few boards down. I also ran a few extra light bulbs from the 1 that existed in this space already. This is the space above my garage.

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I needed to relocate the roof supports to make the space usable so I created several new supports. I did have a roofer come inspect the plan before removing any of the prior supports.

I also had to relocate the existing AC ducts, exhaust duct for the dryer, and a bathroom vent. I added additional 10" joists in sections that needed them. I also found a bathroom waterline by accident and decided to split into it adding a line to my garage for my spare refrigerator. This also gave me the wild idea of adding a fish tank to the space and having water to do water changes easily.

Here's the waterline.

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I originally thought this was a drainage line from the AC and cut into it spraying water everywhere for about 30 seconds while I frantically ran outside to shut off water to the house. Bit of a disaster.

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I rented an attic insulation blower and about 20 bags of recycled insulation material. 20 bags got me the machine rental for free. It was more than I needed but I just put the extra in my main attic that was a little light. It made a huge mess of the entire house. Dust was everywhere. Wife wasn't pleased. The hose became disconnected just before my attic in my wifes office on the second floor and dumped about 3 bags of insulation on the carpet before we realized what happened. Took about a week of dusting to clean all that residue up.

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Started installing the subfloor.

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Floor is done and I added foam rafter vents to keep the air flow moving from outside along the roof into the main attic.

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This room will be my office/game room but also have my sons gaming PC and a stop for my daughter to play games. I wired the entire room for ethernet drops and added an additional breaker for the rooms electrical. I have a dedicated spot for my 3d printer as well.

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I paid someone to do spray foam to the entire space. This was something I thought I might mess up and I don't think there are great DIY options for spray foam. I also can't mess around with insulation. I live in Texas, triple digits are the norm, and this room as an entire exterior roof for a ceiling and 2 exterior walls. I needed as much insulation as the room could fit.

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I couldn't relocate the AC lines in the front of the room so I build a maintenance closet that will also house the fish tank.

I have WLEDs running through several stops in the room. The power is coming from a 5 volt 60 amp power supply in the garage. I saw the back splash on a gaming set up video and had to copy it. Desks are up.

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I was planning on running the new AC lines and a return but now I am messing with stuff I really don't know much about. I ended up hiring someone and they added 2 media filters to my main units, ditching my other air filters. Added 3 more returns to hot areas of the house. It should be a good upgrade to the current house in general but it was expensive.

Started hanging the drywall. I had a little help from the father in law but he was only in town for a few days. He helped me get about half the ceiling up. I 3d printed a contraption to help me hold the drywall in place while I attached the pieces.

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In...

And neat! Can I have a nook?

Looks like a neat project.  I'm sure someone will be along to tell you it's not perfect....but I like what you are doing with the wasted space.  Also, smart using foam insulation.  I would have recommended covering the rafters with 3/4inch or thicker rigid foam sheets and then screwing the drywall over that just for some extra R value and protection from thermal bridging through the roof rafters...but still should work nicely.

I'd be careful with weight up there unless you know it can support it.  Some is fine but don't get carried away.  The idea of a fish tank worries me a little because water is heavy....but if you know it can handle the weight, then it'll be fine.

I looked up support values for the joists that were used and the spacing that was in the attic. It seems the builder didn't skimp on the joists. If i remember correctly they use 12" joists for the garage ceiling. It is also very close to the exterior wall. I think it should be ok but famous last words potentially.

Nice Project.

There are lots of homes in the south with the steeper roof pitches, that have the potential for attic up-fit space like this. But, you better know what you are doing or you will end up with structural and other problems during/after the project. (Think Mike Holmes type of rework.)

I was unwilling to move or mess with the primary ceiling joists. They stick out lower than the rest of the ceiling joists that the drywall is connected to. There are some very strange angles in this room. I decided to sand and stain the 2 joists and have the drywall meet them so they will be exposed.

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I completely finished all drywall in the space last night on 2/8/24, about 7 months after starting the project.

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Here is the space for my 3d printer.

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I wired separate low voltage outlets to house my ESP32 controllers that manage WLED for my led strips. I also modeled ESP32 outlet holders so they can be in the wall but accessible in case of a failure or the need to tinker.

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They wedge into outlets. I'll have to get some pictures. PLACE HOLDER

I used Goove smart lights for the ceiling. I started with 3 but found that the room was going to be too dark and added a total of 6.

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I repurposed one of my kids old iPads into a room controller for the LEDs, the goove lights, thermostat and whatever else I might add. This way the kids can mess with the LEDs as well and not just me from my phone.

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Thats pretty damn nice...

One question. How do you get to the top of the aquarium for maintenance and feeding?

I'll have to get some pictures as I don't have any on my phone. There is a flush door on the maintenance closet. From the inside I have access to the top of the tank. I also have a waterline that I will attached a gravel filter too. The lines have valves so i can create suction and push water out the side of the house. Should work like the gravel filters that you attach to a hose but it might take some trial and error.

This has been in the back of my mind throughout the project. This space had some issues about 18 months ago. The builder did a poor job on the roof line where it meets the outside of the house and water was pooling causing part of the roof to rot. I had a roofing company come in and rebuild a significant portion of the roof and build in the proper exterior angles to keep water from pooling in the future.

I hired a number of people to come examine the room for planning issues, potential future problems, to see if the measures I was taking were sound. Home remodeling company, electrician, 2 HVAC professionals, 2 insulation companies, 3 drywall companies/guys. I could definitely have missed something somewhere but lets hope not.

During the building process I decided to model the room in tinker cad to try and help me wrap my mind around what I was building. I did this around the time the floor was completed. This wasn't necessary and took a LOT of time but it did help me make several decisions with the room. Especially around the design of the maintenance closet. How big should it be, how large of a desk can I make for my son, what size fish tank is appropriate? Is it using too much of the room?

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That's awesome OP.

I plan to start working on finishing my upstairs this year.

It's a blank space right now, will eventually be 2 bedrooms, a full bath, and a game/theater room.

I don't have a timeline, will probably just start framing it and when I get it fully framed I'll pull a permit and start the timeline.

That sounds like a much bigger project compared to what I am doing. Hope it goes well. I got lucky in a lot of ways. My upstairs AC unit has enough unused capacity that I didn't need to replace it. My additional square footage was small enough that my city didn't require permitting. I snuck in by about 50-75 sq ft.

How do you access the rest of the attic incase you need to get there ? Another access panel

The 2 small spaces at the front corners? I don't. There isn't really anything in there.

after the spray insulation went up, I thought I had a wiring problem with my low voltage LED wiring that goes through these spaces. I cut out a section of the foam insulation large enough for me to get in there. Turns out the wiring was fine and the problem was elsewhere. I cut the foam so it would friction fit back in place, which it did. If I ever needed to get in there I would need to do the same again, but with more drywall work.

Roof issues would be the only reason I can see needing to get back in there.

Here is the led controller in my 3D printed outlet mount.

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Some better pictures of the fish tank and closet.

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That's a cool project, looks good so far.

Finished all the drywall. Got stood up by the guy that was supposed to tape, float and texture the room over the weekend. He probably just wanted to watch the Superbowl. Not thrilled.

Last minute I decided to install a conduit for HDMI cables for the TV I plan on installing. Had to pull half a wall down. Better now than later.

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Well done !

Not my work. This was too complicated for me to do for the first time. Guys have been at it for 2 days. I would have Fucked it up. Texture goes in on Friday. They've done another full day of work after these pictures.  

I didn't attach one of the boards well enough and had to pull a pannel off after the first day adding an additional 2x4 support to a stud to secure a drywall pannel. Not sure why I didn't think to do it while putting the drywall up.

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It looks like you cut notches in your floor joists for the wiring so the floor would lay over them?  I’m not an electrician, but that bugs the shit out of me.
Did you put metal caps over them to keep someone from running a screw into them one day down the road?  
Otherwise, looks like an extremely complicated work of art with all those angles.

Yes, I notched a few of the joists so the boards would lay flat and no I did not add metal caps. I didn't want to cut into the houses existing wiring in order to run it through the joists. I painted lines on the flooring to show me were the wires are so I could avoid them but after the carpet is laid I won't really have any idea where the wires are without referencing the pictures I took.

I think I messed up my closet door and will have to redo it tonight before drywall texture goes on tomorrow. I used flush in stud hinges trying to get the door to be as seamless as possible but now that the drywall is up there isn't enough space for the door to open on the hinge side leaving a very ugly gap where the stud is visible. I think I will have to pull the door, install regular hinges and get it all sorted after work tonight before the guys show up to finish the job in the morning.

My deficiencies in framing, design and drywall are starting to show as the room nears completion.

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Great job.  If I lived closer, I would have taped and mudded for ya.  You would not need to texture the walls when I am done.  :-)

Edit, I think to get the gap smaller for your closet door, you might have to have it swing inwards.  Might be difficult to do at this point.   It still will turn out great, and you will be the only one that notices.

Drywall has been textured and I finished painting yesterday. I also put vinyl flooring in the closet and the 3D printing space.

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Neat! Thanks for sharing!

Just out of curiosity, any reason why you didn't add an exterior window? I ask because I work from home full time and it would drive me bonkers to not have a window in my office.

I tried to do as much of this project as I could on my own. I dont really know anything about cutting into masonry. Both exterior walls in this room are brick. The small front wall faces the street and the window would need to go right where I'm planning for my monitor to go.

The other exterior wall faces my neighbors house. There's about 10 ft separating the homes. Also that's where my son's computer monitors will go.  

Not a lot of great spots for a window and I wouldn't know what I was doing.

I also only work from home one day a week. It will mainly be a game room.

Didn't do much this weekend. Got the desks reinstalled, honestly just to organize this room and my theater room which turned into tool storage for a while.

I'm working on finishing the space for my ender 3. Printed out some brackets to relocate things. Printing some test parts for a cable channel. I dont like the exposed cables. The Ender decided to spew filament all over the room on Friday so I had to spend some time fixing it which wasn't in the plans.

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Progress has been slow lately with kids' spring break and my growing honey do list.

I fully set up my fish tank and it only overflowed once… I installed to smart water sensors after that happened and a smart plug so I can turn everything off incase it happens again.

I LEDs put up and added another WLED install to an ESP32 controller board. The 90 LED bends I bought off amazon fried 2 of the boards before I figured out why they were self-destroying. I understand WLEDs but the control boards still throw me for a loop from time to time.
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Caught a few mosquito fish from the neighborhood creek to start cycling the tank. Snagged some plants as well. Free is good.

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I started on the desk back splash 2 days ago. It has been a lot more work than expected. My initial holes were off the hexagon pattern, so I had to router out adjacent holes for nearly half of the cut outs. It’s been a pain in the ass, but I like how it is coming out.
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On one of the desks, you can also see the cut out for the Computer I/O I am adding. 4 USB, 1 USB C, and headphone mic inputs. Both desks will have one.

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I wish I had the foresight to paint the wood black instead of white before putting the backsplash in. I did the painting months ago and it was required to help the black splash stick per the instructions. White was what I had on hand but in some places that don't line up 100% perfect you can see a little of the white coming through cracks.

One desk is about 90% done. There are some imperfections near the edges and where the computer IO slots into the desk. Not sure how I will hide them just yet. Maybe a bead of gray silicone?

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Floors and base boards are in. It's functional now. Still a lot of finishing and cable management work to be done

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I havent started on my daughter's desk area yet. Turns out the stick paper I used as a desk cover isn't durable at all. My son already ripped a section on his desk and he's only been using it for 3 days.

Any ideas on covering a plywood desk top?  I was thinking epoxy.