The Attic

My great uncle asked about the attic, and I realized that I so far haven't even mentioned it. It's probably not what you'd expect. The previous owner did a lot of work to the attic, and the carpeting was installed right before we looked at the house.

The attic is very fresh, clean, lots of light. There are two rooms; the picture is of the large room and then there is a very narrow room on the other side of the house which is being used as "art storage." The big room is going to be my office/studio once the electicity has been updated.

When we looked at the house, we were feeling pretty good about it as we looked through the rooms. When we got to the attic, I knew it was my house. Not just because it's a great space, but for the views. The house is situated on top of a hill in the Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh. There are two windows in the attic, one facing north towards Troy Hill and the Allegheny River, the other looks south at the Hill district, but if you look to the right you get a tiny glimpse of the top of some of the skyscrapers downtown. If you didn't already know this about me, I am obsessed with weather, and from my new vantage point I have fantastic views of approaching storms.

These two images are from the north window, taken last night as a terrific storm came through. That's my chimney. The rooftops are mostly residences in Lawrenceville; the large building on the right is a retirement home.

Here's the south view. Not as impressive. But if you look carefully above the large roof you can see two little gray rectangles - one is the Mellon building, the other is the US Steel building.

So, to answer my uncle's questions, there were no old treasures in the attic. However, in the front bedroom we found the old fireplace hearth under the carpet, with some newspaper glued to it from 1934. This headline was particularly amusing.