brownstone upper duplex made into loft?

To answer Dean:

Yes, I actually have done exactly that. Originally we started fussing with the ceiling to simply to open a “hidden” skylight that had, for some reason or other, been covered from the interior (idiots, the guys that cut this brownstone into a multifamily… really, just idiots, but that’s another story). When it became evident that the ceiling height of ~8′ was nowhere near that of the roofline we just went for it.

In my opinion, the apartment is VASTLY nicer looking now and given that it’s a rental property the look of surprise when prospective tenants enter the room to a 14′ ceiling, the decision was worth it. I had lived in the unit for a few years and I loved it actually.

Given that the “original details” had long ago been stripped away during the conversion to a multifamily (I assume) as well as easily 50 years of tenant-turnover and slapdash patch-word, it was really a no-brainer – there was nothing to “save”…

… plus, it is my understanding that top floors of brownstones were not generally adorned with all that much in the line of “details” anyway for whatever socio-economic thinking was in play at the time of construction… anyway…

Not to speak directly to your property, but as far as I am aware there is absolutely no load-bearing interior wall in the design of a brownstone.

If the configuration of your property allowed (egress, privacy, room placement, pipes, electric etc…) you could likely tear out the hallway wall as well and open the apartment right onto the staircase.

An old apartment of mine had that done long before I happened upon it and frankly it was lovely. It also opened the hallway skylight into the apartment which certainly added to the light. There were some “wall sections” that needed to remain in order to allow for the sewage-vapor line and some electric cabling, but it was done is such a way as to not be bothersome. I’d have to draw it for you for it to make any sense.

To tear the existing ceiling down, for me, was almost as easy as blowing on it, since it was shi*t. From what I could tell (and remember), the ceiling had been installed with some 2x4s and sheetrock… prior to that (based on other floors in the property) it was likely plaster (which is a messy beast) and slats, but that was not the case…

… plaster is messy for sure, but it’s not all that complex to remove so long as you have some decent handimen and some great masks… otherwise you’ll be coughing white-mucous for weeks… hahah…

I can’t speak for my handiman, but taking it down seemed easy enough. Once down, we left the exposed beams for a year or so and that, I assure you, was a mistake… it was FREEZING and dirty (the old tar that they apparently used to treat the beams dribbled from time to time and it was dusty as heck… although, I kind of liked the look).

We eventually insulated between the roof-beams (forgive me if that’s the wrong term) and secured sheetrock to the beams, basically giving us ~14ft height up front and about ~10ft in the back.

It does tend towards getting chillier up there than when we had the ~8ft “original” ceiling, because, I suppose obviously, the radiators now have a lot more cubic feet to deal with. The insulation is a must and between the “heat rises” and the “sun beating on black tar paper” factors, it really isn’t that uncomfortable except on the coldest of days…

… as for the “sun on black paper thing”, the slope of my house faces South, so we get full sun constantly from literally sunrise to sunset. It does help heat the roof… in the summer, I’d advise you to invest in a really good A/C for each side of the house and ceiling fans. Ceiling fans make all the difference… get good, big ones (60″) – totally worth it.

We’ve supplemented the heat with some floor units that work just fine. And a nice throw-blanket goes a long way to getting warm and cozy. Sadly, the fireplace was not something we decided to make functional (although, it could function with about 4 hours of work, I just don’t trust it to tenants now that it’s a rental), but we have found that there are gas heaters easily found at HomeDepot/Lowes that can be connected to your cooking gas line and will heat the place like a furnace.

It should be noted that for the most part, we did away with all of the walls in the unit so it is now a “big C”. The two “pocket rooms” came down easily as well. The apartment looks huge, feels very open and still has “compartments” that naturally dictate “bedroom”, “office”, “the TV goes here” kinda thing.

The removal of the walls for the smaller rooms was more or less an “ease of operation” decision in that once everything was knocked down, it was easy enough to install the ceiling sheetrock without too much worry and the uniformity of the ceiling would remain intact.

I personally felt that those little rooms were a little too small for my comfort, so I had no problem taking them down. Should you disagree with my perspective on that, I am sure that one or both could remain and the walls would just need to be extended to meet with your new ceiling height.

A ceiling fan set to reverse the air flow works wonders also. I never believed it on the box drawings, but it is the case.

At any rate, I hope that covers some of your questions. If you have any further questions, feel free to ask.

TO THE OP/MYPLACE:

While I can’t say for sure, it would seem like a huge waste of space to knock out the floor between a portion of the 3rd and 4th floors… although, I can say that it’d probably be

Often, the top floor of many brownstones can be opened up all the way up to the underside of the roof line. I have seen this in a few buildings making the top floor a large open loft. Yes it is pretty cool, but you will lose any original detail that the house may have and the space becomes more difficult to heat. Great if you’re the artist type or just wants that look.