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The Annual Ritual of Loft Building
| Every year a common site greets us students.
When the door is opened, a bare room blares back almost intimidating
in it's barrenness. We live with an arrangement of three beds,
with the third one up above and between the other two. There
are two desk, the one by the door is really too small to use, especially
if there is a computer on it. There is also a large three-wide
closet, drawers, and shelving.
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When building a loft, the first thing that needs
to be done are plans of the loft which need to match the
specifications (new for 2000), and having it okayed by the
RA. After that, materials are to be had! There are various
layouts for the lofts, ranging from small "corner" lofts, to full
spanning lofts, in which there is no center brace (which is what Paul,
in the photo, was getting materials for).
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After that the pieces are screwed together to
start forming the structure. This photo shows me and my room
mate, Ted, putting ours together. This one was done in 4 fairly
equal sections with bolts bolting the sections together and a two
section long beam in the front.
For this loft we had just screwed the boards together with out
using joyce hangers because they weren't very easy to put in and
line up. The new rules specify that this can't be done any
longer, joyce hangers are now needed.
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When the loft is done as shown in this photo, the
result is quite a bit more room for all occupants. For having
to have three people to a room, a loft is about the only way the overcrowding
can be reduced. A finished loft provides more shelf space (the
third bed), and quite a bit of extra storage space. For the
third person, the cupboard doors can be taken off and this provides
built in shelf space for paper work and a computer.
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Nathan Brown - 2000.07.29
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