With an inventive spirit, lots of DIY ideas and skilled craftsmanship, master locksmith Marc has made a dream come true for himself, his wife Svenja and their young daughter: he has converted the attic of their old half-timbered house for his family. Three generations live here together. Until then, Marc and Svenja had a 90 m² apartment in the house, which eventually became too small for their daughter.

For years, the attic of the house was only used as a storage room and was literally crammed to the rafters. To create living space, Marc took on the challenge: "Do it yourself" was the motto. He spent weeks working with computer programs on his ideas for the conversion of the future attic apartment, which was just 45 m² in size. He also designed the furniture and fixtures on the PC and then implemented his designs himself. He mainly used metal and wood as materials. Marc spent hours flexing, welding, sawing and hammering in his garage. The result: a small jewelry box, tailor-made for the family.

Following the conversion, the kitchen is now the focal point of the open-plan attic space. This is where Svenja's dream of a kitchen island came true. The kitchen leads into the cozy living room and the dining room with a large window front that was custom-made into the half-timbering.

Two discarded but roadworthy motorcycles are parked there as an unusual decoration - Svenja and Marc are enthusiastic motorcycle fans. Although the two-wheelers take up a lot of space, they fit perfectly into the room.

Marc has made perfect use of every square centimeter of the precious space in his planning. His masterpiece is the so-called kneeling floor, the space under the sloping roof. The higher the knee floor, the more storage space is available. To make it easily accessible, the 35-year-old inventor developed a sophisticated rail and slide system. It has space for 40 plastic crates, which he can easily pull out using a rope.

The family has even been able to accommodate a guest bathroom in the 45 m² attic - with many small and large details. For example, the stone washbasin, which stands on a restored workbench. Quite a bit of work for Marc: in order to be able to place the discarded workbench at all, he had to make all kinds of cuts in height and width and first unscrew the whole colossus in order to be able to fit the fittings properly.

Marc also adapted the rest of the furniture to the exact dimensions of the roof truss. In particular, he used the oak worktops from the kitchen as the material for the dining room table, stairs and banisters. He even turned the offcuts into chopping boards.
Sustainability is particularly important to Marc and Svenja. This is also reflected in the energy budget. A 22 kW solar system on the roof provides sufficient electricity and a connected battery for storage. The family can thus achieve a good 72% energy self-sufficiency for the whole house, i.e. for all three generations. This is because they produce hot domestic water using an auxiliary heating system in the hot water tank, which is fed from the surplus electricity from the PV system. A gas boiler then takes care of the remaining peaks.

Marc and Svenja have transformed their more than 100-year-old half-timbered house into a unique, modern and sustainable living space with lots of love and creative DIY ideas.

A movie by: Jörg Hommer (editor), Bettina Lichtenauer (camera), Max Tiemann (camera / sound) and Frank Rosam (editor)

00:00 Attic conversion
01:25 Kitchen
03:12 Dining room
05:25 Living room
06:04 Guest bathroom
06:55 Reading corner
08:00 Stairs
09:11 Children's room
09:38 Bedroom
10:33 Garden