Room Additions in Valley Village, Original Windows Moved Out
Room additions in Valley Village moving original sash and casings from the covered wall into the new room, with escape windows and the old opening reworked.
"Can the old windows on that wall be saved?" It is fair to ask at a Valley Village walk-through, since any original sash in the wall an addition covers will lose its view of the yard. Often they can move. Sash and casings are lifted out whole and set into the new outside wall, so the old glass faces the yard again. If the room behind them is a bedroom, it still needs its own escape window to the outdoors, and that shapes the layout.
Moving original sash
Old wood sash can come out with its frame, have loose paint removed under lead-safe practices and be rebuilt with new glazing putty and weatherstrip. The addition's wall framing is sized to the rough opening of the salvaged unit, which is why that measurement is taken before the framing is drawn. Where older glass falls short on the energy forms, a fitted interior storm panel can make up part of the difference, or the old unit goes on a wall where the calculation has room for it. Casings and sills travel with the window so the trim still matches.
What fills the old opening
With the sash out, the opening between the old room and the addition can stay as a wide passage, take a door, or be framed in. A wide passage may need a header sized by the engineer if the wall carries load. Infill gets studs and is finished in plaster or drywall flat to the old surface, with no insulation needed now that the wall sits inside the house. Original floorboards exposed at the doorway are refinished together with any new boards pieced in, so the change of room does not show as a seam underfoot.
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Reuse what you can and copy the rest. Original sash and casings from the covered wall go into the addition, and the roof takes the main pitch and overhang. Siding exposure is measured off the existing walls, and new baseboard is milled from a traced profile, so inside and out the new room repeats the old one.
That turns on footings and walls. An engineer checks whether the existing foundation and framing can take the load of an upper floor, then calls for added footings, posts, hold-downs or plywood shear walls where they cannot, and LADBS reviews the result. That work goes into the scope ahead of any design.
Ledgers bolted to the old frame, steel hangers and the engineer's nailing schedule carry the new framing. Joists are sized or sistered so the floors meet level, rafters lap at the joint, and flashing covers the seam before the siding. The connection stays uncovered until the inspector has seen it.
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