The kids are grown, the sewing machine has taken over a corner of the dining room, and the attic is a ladder's climb into seventy years of boxes. In a Level Green house, the attic can be the room you have been doing without.
Level Green Attics
Postwar houses make up close to half of Level Green, most are family-sized, and older couples now live in about half of them. From that, six kinds of attic projects follow.
Around 860 Level Green homes went up between 1940 and 1959, with attics meant to hold a ceiling and a few boxes, so even where the roof is tall enough, the joists usually need help before anyone can live up there.
We size the ceiling joists, double them where they fall short, and lay a stiff deck. Old rafters are checked for sag, and the loose fill between the joists is removed so the insulation can move up to the rafters.
What we find up thereWith the children grown, many Level Green couples finally have time for quilting, painting or model building, but no room to leave a project out. An attic workroom lets the work stay spread out between sessions.
Bright, even lighting from skylights and fixtures, outlets along every wall, a durable floor that shrugs off spills, and built-in shelving at the knee walls. A real stair with a rail means fabric and paint come up in your arms, not a ladder.
Home offices and studiosChildren live in about a quarter of Level Green's homes, nearly all of them sized for families. Moving a teenager up to the attic frees a bedroom below for a younger sibling, a guest room or an office, and gives the teen some distance.
The attic is built as a full bedroom: an egress opening, a wired detector, a closet beneath the slope and plenty of outlets for a desk and screens. Insulation between floors keeps late nights from waking the house.
Attic bedrooms and suitesRoughly one Level Green house in five was built this century, and roofs that new are often made of factory trusses. Those angled webs crowd the space and stay put unless an engineer redesigns the roof.
We confirm the framing first. If an engineered truss redesign makes sense, we bring the engineer in; if not, we say so and help you find the room elsewhere, such as the basement or over the garage.
What we find up thereThe typical Level Green house has seven rooms, and decades in one house fill an attic. Owners finishing the attic still want somewhere to keep the holiday bins, just not at the top of a pull-down ladder.
Along the eaves, the short walls get cabinets, deep drawers and small doors into sealed storage bays, insulated along with the room. Holiday bins slide out at floor level instead of being carried down a ladder.
Knee-wall storageSome Level Green owners now work from home, and a spare bedroom is not always free in a family house. The attic offers a workspace you can shut, well away from the kitchen, the television and the doorbell.
The desk sits where the ceiling peaks, on its own circuit with a network jack, lit by the gable window or a skylight. Batts in the floor and a solid-core door make calls private, and a mini-split keeps the room comfortable through a full workday.
Home offices and studiosFigures: ACS 2020–2024 (U.S. Census Bureau), rounded because Level Green's sample is small.
The rest of the job
How it runs, what it costs and who builds it are on our main attic finishing page.
An Attic in Level Green
Level Green answers to Penn Township on permits, uses Trafford's ZIP for mail, and, like any house gaining a room upstairs, has its smoke alarms to rethink.
Penn Twp.Permits and inspections
Because it sits inside Penn Township, Level Green follows the same attic rules as Harrison City for permits, inspections, work hours and floor loads. Our Harrison City attic page lays each one out in detail. We file the township permit and meet the inspector.
Penn Township attic rules, explained15085Trafford ZIP, township address
The mail says Trafford, yet the houses belong to Penn Township. Trafford's lateral camera rule for larger jobs is a borough ordinance and ends at its boundary, so a Level Green attic never triggers it. We verify which side a parcel is on before filing.
How Trafford's rules differEvery levelAlarms once permitted work is done
Code ties smoke alarms to permitted work: once an attic room is added, the house generally needs alarms wherever a new home would, with a few exceptions. In an older Level Green house, that often means adding alarms beyond the attic. We price them in.
How an attic job runsAttic Questions
Level Green owners usually start with these five. Our attic finishing service describes a whole job.
Ask a QuestionMost of it comes down to how much the postwar joists need, where a stair lands and if the roof needs a dormer for height; built-in storage or a mini-split adds more. We measure first and hand you a written number; the attic service page shows our usual ranges.
Attic cost rangesYes. The residential code calls for an emergency escape opening in a habitable attic, not only in bedrooms, so even a workroom up there needs one. A gable window can often be enlarged to qualify, or a dormer or roof window can provide it.
Attic bedrooms and suitesRarely a whole one. In a seven-room house, a stair usually claims a hall closet, part of a bedroom closet or a corner where the hall ends. We draw a few placements and show what each costs in floor space before anything is cut.
Stairs and accessThey keep working. When the insulation moves up to the roofline, baffles go in between the rafters so air still runs from the soffit vents to the ridge or gable vents. That keeps the roof deck dry, the shingles cool and ice dams less likely.
Insulation and ventilationOne ZIP over. The shop is in Trafford, which shares Level Green's 15085, so the crew is minutes away. That makes it easy to be on site when the township inspector arrives or a question comes up about a rafter, without anyone losing a morning to waiting.
Other Services
Around Level Green we also rebuild postwar kitchens and baths and frame decks for the big backyards. Pick a service below.
Kitchen RemodelingNew layouts, new cabinets, new counters: framed, built, and installed by the same crew.View Service
Bathroom RemodelingFull gut renovations with proper waterproofing, new framing, and tile set by hand.View Service
Basement FinishingUnfinished basements turned into real rooms: framed, insulated, drywalled, and finished by our crew.View Service
Additions & ADUsAdditions and accessory dwelling units (ADUs), framed from the ground up and tied in clean.View Service
Windows & Exterior DoorsWindows and exterior doors set, flashed, and trimmed so water stays out of the wall.View Service
Exterior Restoration & Structural RepairsRotted trim and siding, sagging joists, failed sills: opened up and repaired to solid wood.View Service
Decks & Covered PatiosDecks, covered patios and three-season rooms, flashed to the house and built for Westmoreland winters.View ServiceVerified Google Reviews
5.0 out of 5 · 17 reviews
Written by the homeowners we've worked for across Westmoreland County. Every one verified on Google, every one pulled from the real feed.
Get in Touch
Tell us about the project in the form or give us a call. Either way, estimates are free and the number is the number — priced to the actual work, written down before anyone swings a hammer.
Call or Text
412-730-8805
hello@alltradeshq.com
Hours
Mon–Fri · 8:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Closed Sat & Sun
Shop
529 Forest Ave
Trafford, PA 15085
