Raising the Roof

I think I might have mentioned in a previous post that we had hoped to move our master bedroom upstairs and create a master suite upstairs.  There are several things standing in the way of making this happen, but the major two are the climate upstairs (more than 5 minutes spent upstairs currently warrents a shower) and the deadly stairs.  I swear someone could break their neck on those bad boys.  Now, for those of you that don't remember the stair situation we have going on, here is a reminder:

This weekend, we brought in a contractor to look over the situation and tell us our options.  We found out we really don't many and there are a lot of what if's involved.  There is a chance we could raise the ceiling in the kitchen enough above the stairs to swing them around toward the patio door.  We could move them completely and put them in the bedroom on the way to the bathroom, but that presents another issue.  The current attic space isn't completely in line with the first floor and where we want to put the stairs to access the second floor is just outside of the wall lines on the second floor.  So, it seems the only option left is to raise the roof!  We want to take the roof off and add a full second story complete with a master bedroom with walkin closet, a master bathroom and a second room with a to be determined purpose.  In addition to this, we would relocate the stairs to the current library and close off the stairwell area currently located in the kitchen thereby doubling our kitchen space.  They had me at doubling the kitchen.  Oh, did I mention that we could also re-do the ugly ceiling in the kitchen and then add some lighting so we can see what is going on when we are cooking.  This all sounds amazing, but there is a bit of a problem: the funding. 

Currently, I am researching funding options.  Does anyone have 30k they would like to lend us?  Just kidding.  When you have no home equity, what do you do?  So, this is where we are at the moment, with a gigantic sad face.  I think we need to start playing the lottery.  Perhaps someone should pay off our student loans.  Lets not get me started on those! 

As part of this project, we are looking for an architect to design the addition and a structural engineer to come in and make sure our existing structure can support additional weight.  If anyone has a recommendation for either of these, we would greatly appreciate it if you send them our way!