Sounds like you want to hold-off any construction so try this: How are the basement windows? Most are single pane. Install some of the plastic window shield over them (the stuff you shrink with a hair dryer). Run the circulating fan from the furnace continually. This will keep the basement near the house temperature while refreshing the air there. Possibly add another heat vent - duct it over a window or to an outside wall. Our basement is finished with 2" XPS insulation against the concrete. It too drops to the low 60's but doing the above raises the temperature. We installed an electric fireplace as auxulary heat to make the space more comfortable in the spring/fall when the furnace is not running to heat the house. I don't believe there is a "good, inexpensive" solution. Water heaters are not efficient or intended for use as a boiler. Good luck.

How about: --Move the 13'9 wall "up" 1' to change the width of this bedroom from 11' to 10'. Then cut the long closet in it in half, with the right part remaining a closet. Remove the left part of the original closet wall so that you now have about a 6'6 wide alcove on this bedroom that's ~4' deep. --Now the other bedroom is 7'6 wide between the 5' knee wall and the 13'9 wall, which will be better with the 5' knee wall. We have a 6' knee wall next to a 6' dormer like yours. When the kids are up tomorrow afternoon when I get home, I'll measure things to see how I think it might feel and post again. --Make the new hall to this dormered bedroom 42" wide, with a wall parallel to the 12' wall of the 12'6 x 12' bedroom. (Could you label your next drawing bedrooms A, B, C, D to make things easier to identify?) ;0) Put a linen closet about 18" deep and 4'6 wide opposite the new laundry. "Below" that, make a 5'x4'6 closet for the bedroom to the right. Then use the space "below" it for another closet the same size for the dormered bedroom. It looks like you're trying to get the same square footage for each room, so you may want to juggle my suggestions around a little bit. If the new closet sizes seem too small, you could make the one for the 12'6x12' BR 4'6x10', make the alcove in the 13'9x10 BR a little narrower thus widening the closet, and make the dormered BR closet 7'6x4 between the 5' knee wall and the 13'9 wall. Hope this helps! Anne

I'm not sure that's possible. But you could have the angled panel permanently closed/drawn. Only the panel(s) on the straight rod would open and close.

I don't think it has a name. It's just a piece of wood. If you went to the lumber yard to buy it, it's probably lattice. It seems unnecessary though.