Loft apartments were quite common in television and film in the 1990s/2000s. I definitely wanted to live in one. At least I’ve been lucky enough to experience urban living in high rise apartments for the last 12 years.
However, I never did and the chances of me doing so in the future are infinitesimal.
Did you ever live in a loft or want to? What did you think of it?
Here’s a link to descriptions of lofts in Chicago to clarify what type of housing I’m referring to.
… A Warehouse Loft (also called an Industrial Loft ) is found in a converted factory building or warehouse, as the name implies.…
… A Timber Loft probably matches many renters’ preconceptions of what lofts look like. Sturdy wooden beams and timber-clad ceilings are defining traits of Timber Lofts…
… Then there are the Soft Loft apartments, which renters might encounter in areas with more recent construction…. This is a loft apartment built in recent years to evoke a loft feel: high ceilings, generous natural light, and raw industrial materials are incorporated into the apartment even though it was never used in any industrial capacity….
What are your aesthetics? I have lived in a brutalist, genuine industrial loft, as opposed to an “industrial” “loft” marketed at yuppies, and it definitely was not for everyone: sketchy neighbourhood, often noisy, hope you aren’t afraid of rats, better be a little handy/DIY with the plumbing and electricity, etc. I was OK with it, but you should like industrial buildings.
I also lived in a garret for a short while, not the same city, and that was nicer in certain ways: wooden floors instead of bare concrete and plenty of wooden beams in front of your face. I liked the non-right angles. It was a residential building in a residential neighbourhood, nothing industrial about it.
The main point of all those options is, they were cheap.
Still plenty on my to-do list, e.g. :“lighthouse” sounds cool, or at least a tower (inverse option: old missile silo?); gatehouse or building on a bridge, geodesic dome…
The OP description covers several different definitions of ‘loft’. It sounds like, when it comes to converted warehouses or apartments, a ‘loft’ is more or less just the top living space of the building.
When I think of a loft space, I think of a living space in a house made from what would have been attic space-- with sloping walls because it’s the inside of the roof. I have a loft space above our garage that functions as my office / man cave, and several years ago we had another huge unused attic space at the other side of our house converted to loft space which functions as a spare bedroom, or woman cave / office area for Mrs. solost.
The main plus to me is, it’s a way to maximize the space in a house. The minuses are, since heat rises, it tends to get very hot in the summertime. Even with our home’s central air I have to have a pretty high BTU window air conditioner to make my office area bearable. And in the winter it gets pretty chilly, so I also need supplementary heating. But it’s much easier to heat the space than to cool it. The other main minus obviously is, though the basic square footage makes my loft area sound like a huge space, the sloping walls of the roof limit what I can do with the layout.
This is what I’m answering, too. I lived in finished attic space in a museum on Nantucket for a summer. I think the building was originally a large house, though I’m not certain. I did like it. The rooms were huge and sparse, including a giant bathroom with a giant tub. The floors were old, creaky wood. The charm was fitting for Nantucket island. I lived there in probably 1978.
When I think of a loft, I think of a living space with high ceilings that doesn’t have walls splitting it up into individual rooms. I guess that’s not the usual definition?
My sister and her husband’s first home was an A-Frame with the upstairs being a loft. The house looked so freaking cool from outside. Inside it was not very practical; a poor use of space, etc.
I always thought lofts meant you had your daytime living space on the main floor and had to climb a ladder (or steep stairs) to get to the upper platform where your bed was. I’m guessing this is how @kayaker 's sister’s A-frame was.
Good to know that that’s NOT the definition of a loft (it is just A definition of a loft). Because I could never understand why all these people were opting to get a loft apartment and climb a ladder to go to bed!
Regardless whether a loft is a big industrial space or an attic, I’ve lived in artists lofts for around 15 years. Prior to that I coveted them. Now, I don’t want to live in them anymore. Sketchy, run-down, bad neighbors at times. Good points: lots of floor space for dance choreography and large-scale paintings. Sometimes, intentional communities of artists.
If it’s a multi-level loft, you’ll have to deal with the hassle of climate control in the different levels. Since there’s nothing to stop the flow of cold air down and hot air up, you’ll always have the upper level hotter than the lower level. If the thermostat and bedroom are on different levels, your bedroom will often not be at a comfortable temperature. One solution is to get a thermostat which has multiple sensors. At night, you tell the thermostat to set the temp based on the bedroom sensor. This may make the other part of the loft be uncomfortable, but your bedroom will be at your preferred temp. But even if you have multiple temp sensors, the ducts may not be set up to direct enough air to the bedroom to achieve the desired temp. A 2-story, open apartment in Arizona during the summer with the bedroom in the upstairs loft area may be blazing hot no matter what the thermostat is set for. You may have to get creative with regular fans and possibly duct fans to force enough HVAC air to the upstairs area so it’s a comfortable temp.
I had a similar problem in my last condo, but it was caused by east vs west exposure & lousy thermostat siting, not by multiple levels. Making the fulltime home office comfortable in the day made the bedroom an icebox at night. Making the bedroom comfortable at night made the office a sauna in the day. Not good.
I got a thermostat that had one remote sensor. Could have gotten multiple. But I found it easiest to just carry the sensor into the room I was going to hang out in. Get out of bed and drag it, and my phone, and coffee, etc. into the office for the day. Sun’s barely up and that room hadn’t gotten overheated yet. The sensor sitting on the corner of a desk kept the room comfy all day. By end of workday, the bedroom would be freezing. When I quit work, bring the sensor into the bedroom, park it on the corner of a dresser and by bedtime the temps will have settled in there nicely. And once the sun was down the office will start cooling too. Lather rinse repeat tomorrow.