3 Tips for a Successful Attic to Study Conversion

If you are anything like vast swathes of the population, you no doubt have boxes piled up in your attic that are accumulating dust month after month, year after year. But the attic often offers enough space to be converted into another room – a room that could both add to your quality of life and increase your home's value by up to 20%.

A great choice for an attic room is a study. If you bemoan that fact that you never have a quiet space to read or that you don't have the ideal set-up to start a business from home, this is the attic conversion for you.  Here are some tips to make your attic to study conversion a success.

Natural light is imperative. In order to have a study that actually feels like a place where you want to hit the books or get on with some work on your computer, it needs to be well lit. If you think that you can just get away with hanging up some strips of neon lighting or installing spotlights, think again. People who are exposed to natural light are more productive and alert. This means that skylight windows are a necessary part of the conversion. Of course, the larger the skylight window the better, and it should ideally be placed in the centre of an attic roof for an even distribution of natural light.

Take care of moisture. With any use of an attic, even when you are just storing things in boxes, but especially when you have shelves of books and expensive electronic equipment on display, moisture is something that needs to be taken care of. You can take care of this by ensuring that your attic walls are robust and don't let moisture in. You can also encourage air circulation via fans and expanding an air conditioning unit to reach your new study. And another use of your skylight window is that you can open it to encourage air circulation and prevent a build-up of unwanted moisture.

Smart storage. Many attics have sloping walls, and this is not ideal if you want to fit bookshelves in your new study as most store bought items simply won't fit the structure. This means that you have to think a little out of the box when it comes to storage. You could have a desk custom made that not only fits with the slope but also has larger than normal storage compartments. You could also take a more "rustic" approach and put piles of books in baskets and barrels.