Insulation blows.

We kicked off our Halloween weekend with a good ol’ fashioned panic attack. Why? Because this happened:

Ohhh, the horror!! How are we going to survive winter with an uninsulated attic?

OK, it’s not completely uninsulated. But it might as well be. There are only 4 inches of the fluffy stuff upstairs. That’s an R-value of approximately 9. Or basically nothing. With snow falling and temperatures dropping, we decided it was time to stop fighting the inevitable. We needed to insulate.

Once we insulate the attic, we won’t be able to use it for storage anymore, so we had to make sure and completely empty the attic. We also won’t be able to walk around the attic  anymore because it would crush the insulation. We had to figure out a way to access the wires and other stuff we might need someday. And, finally, we needed a way to insulate the entrance to the attic:

We started by building a ledge to keep the insulation contained:

Bradley showed me how to install baffles along the edge of the attic:

I took over that job while Bradley built the catwalk:

The catwalk is basically an elevated trail that we can crawl along to access anything we might need without disturbing the insulation.

Here’s how we sealed up the entrance:

We stacked two sheets of 4″ foam right on top of the ledge. That gives us an R-value of 20. The staircase leading up to the attic will also act as an air pocket and hopefully help retain some of our heat downstairs.

While we were working, we heard a rustling noise in the corner. And then a squirrel popped out out of the old insulation:

He took a few steps towards us and just stood there. But something was off. The squirrel seemed…drunk? He was teetering and his eyes were all droopy. Before we could figure out what was happening, he climbed back into the insulation and hid under the floor boards.

Bradley checked out the situation and it seemed like our new squirrel friend was napping. We gave him a few gentle prods with the end of a broomstick and he refused to budge. So we grabbed a hammer and pried the floor boards up to see if we could scare him out:

And that’s when we realized our squirrel was actually not napping, but dying. Rapidly. We got him out just in the nick of time. Poor little guy. We actually feel really lucky that he came out and warned us rather than just dying quietly under the floorboards. That could have been really gross and smelly.

On a less sad note, here’s how the baffles looked when finished:

After that, we used Great Stuff to seal up the cracks between the floor and the ledge:

Next up: insulating!

Before we rented the insulation blower, we measured out the square footage of our attic — it’s 950 square feet. Then we went to Home Depot to buy our insulation and pick up the blower. The rental desk employee helped us figure out how much insulation we would need to add another 12 inches to our attic. It would cost us $750. Not bad! Unfortunately the blower was checked out by someone else, so we went to Lowe’s instead.

This is where our whole squirrel-died-Home-Depot-was-a-bust day turned around. Lowe’s had a blower available. They also had a different brand of insulation that was formaldehyde-free. That brand ended up being waaaaay cheaper than the brand Home Depot carried. Adding 12 inches to our attic would cost us only $435 at Lowe’s! That’s $315 cheaper. Whee! We love saving moolah!

The only catch with Lowe’s was that we had to buy a minimum of 20 bags to get the blower for free. We only needed 15 bags to add 12 inches, so the other 5 bags would be extra R-value. We loaded up and drove home.

We had a 100-foot hose to work with, so we didn’t even have to carry the insulation upstairs. We just ran the hose along the banister and up the stairs.

The attic is dark and creepy and smelly, so I volunteered to load the machine while Bradley sprayed. I was a little worried that I’d somehow hurt myself. Maybe the machine would eat up my fingers. Maybe my sleeve would catch on a gear, and I’d get swallowed up.

Every project starts with me wondering if I’m going to fall into a machine and get eaten. It’s totally irrational. Especially when the blades are covered with an inch of soft rubber. So, I flipped the switch and let ‘er rip.

I fed the machine with a quarter block of insulation at a time. The blades fluffed up the insulation and blew them up to the attic where Bradley sprayed it in soft piles:

It looked like a winter wonderland up there.

The next step was to carefully clear the catwalk so we knew where it was:

Bradley used a small broom to gently push insulation off and to the sides. Here’s how it looked when we finished:

We started out with 4 inches of insulation and an R-value of 9. We ended up adding 16-20 inches. We’re not sure what the R-value is now, but it’s over 44. The recommended amount for our area is 38, so we’re geeked. And we can feel the difference already. The second floor used to be so cold, we couldn’t hang out there for long unless we were working. Now? Nice and toasty.

The whole process took us about 6 or 7 hours. It was one of the easiest, most mindless jobs we’ve done around the house. The hardest part was not getting bored to death. Even if you’re not handy, you can totally insulate your attic in a day. Best part: you’ll save a ton of dough. Check out our budget breakdown.

What we spent
20 bags of insulation = $580
Blower rental = $0

Grand total = $580 for more than R-44.

Cost of buying R-38 insulation at Home Depot = $750
We saved $170 by going across the street.

Cost of having Lowe’s install R-38 = $1,881
We saved $1,301 by doing it ourselves.

—

What we learned:

• Shop around.
  We got lucky that Home Depot didn’t have a blower available so we had to go to Lowe’s. We saved a ton of money. Check both places before you rent!
• Prep your attic the day before you rent your blower.
  On Saturday, we cleaned our attic, built the ledge and catwalk, and went to Lowe’s to pick up the insulation and blower. On Sunday, we insulated for 6 hours straight, then took the blower back.
  
• You will feel scratchy all over.
  It’s unavoidable. Wear long sleeves, pants and gloves. And, for the love of Pete….
• Wear goggles.
  We didn’t and we’re still regretting it. Our eyes are totally scratchy and raw.
• Dress your dog up for Halloween.
  It has nothing to do with insulating, but it’ll make you feel good. Trust us.
  

We’ll be back with some more updates on what’s going on in our casa. Hint: it’s getting hot in here. We’ll take off all our clothes. Not really.But at least we’re no longer going to bed in sweaters and wool socks. Stay tuned for that, coming up soon!

Let there be (recessed) light.

There was a lot of crawling around in a dark, smelly attic over the weekend, but we went from this:

To this:

Recessed lights in the hallway! Whee! And not a moment too soon. I was getting pretty tired of literally running through the dark hall to get to the bathroom at night. The hallway is pitch black, and there are spiders everywhere. Or at least that’s what I tell myself once I get to the end of the hallway and click on the bathroom light. I’m not a scaredy cat — I’m just being cautious.

Here’s how the project went from down below. Bradley’s used a template to trace a circle on the ceiling. And then he cut it out using a jig saw:

He’s such a pro with the jigsaw. Check out his nearly perfect circle:

Once the hole was cut, Bradley crawled through the attic and installed the lights:

He also did all the electrical work to get those suckers in working order, but I didn’t take pictures of that because he was working by flashlight. Electrical work is definitely a Bradley job. I mostly just held up the flashlight for him and fetched him tools when he needed them. And constantly reminded him to be careful. And asked bajillion times whether he had shut off the power to the entire house, just in case. Cautious to the max.

Besides having to work in a smelly, dark environment, we also had the annoyance of having zero plug-ins. We had to drag up a long extension cord to plug power tools into. Bradley put up with it as long as he could (approximately 6 hours total) and then decided to install and wire a light and a plug-in in the middle of the attic:

There were a lot of “LET THERE BE RECESSED LIGHT!” and “LET THERE BE LIGHTBULB!” jokes going on. Mostly from me. Bradley was busy wiring-slash-ignoring my corny self.

On the left you can see boxes full of all our worldly possessions. Down the center you can see some storm shutters we found in the attic and might eventually clean up and hang. And up top you can see the rafters that the bats hang out in and poop from:

I long for the days we didn’t have light in our attic and I was none the wiser. Ignorance is bliss. I’ll never climb up there in flip-flops again. *Shudder*

As for as boozhey goes — that’s the fancy, French word for budget — these lights rang up to be $19 a pop. We paid just over $12 each for the cans and $7 each for a plastic piece that went inside. We also picked up a 6-pack of energy saver bulbs for about $18.

A couple of weeks after we got these, we found the recessed light cages on a clearance rack at Lowe’s for $1 each. They weren’t the type that can be installed in an attic full of insulation so they won’t work upstairs, but we could definitely install them in the drop-ceiling we plan on doing in the kitchen. We snagged all 5 that were on the shelf for a mere six bones. They were originally over $10 each, so we scored them for 90% off.

We ended up buying 11 total recessed lights — the 2 we put up in the hallway and the rest for other spots. We don’t want to sound like we’re going recessed-light-crazy here, buying em up in bulk and slapping them up all over the house. We’re placing them strategically in areas where a hanging light fixture just won’t work.

The office has a super low ceiling (under 8 feet) so having recessed lights is a nice way to have lighting without constantly bumping our heads on some fixture. And the spot right outside the bathroom also has a low ceiling.

You can see those wires dangling all the way down the hall, so even hanging a really small fixture will be visible. It kinda of ruins the whole huge-brick-wall-at-the-end-of-the-hallway thing we’re going for.

In other news:

• Our plasterer called us this morning and she’s showing up tomorrow morning to get things started. Whee!! I may or may not have squeaked out a single tear at the thought of fiiiiinally getting these rooms done-zo.
• The Ariondack chairs are stained! They need a second coat of varnish and then I’ll share all the deets with you guys. Stay tuned for that!
• We realized a few days ago that we’ve lived without a stove / oven for over 3 months! Because all of our moolah is going into our house projects right now, we’ve put the kibosh on eating out. Instead, we’ve been relying on our grill, rice cooker and microwave for all of our cooking. How crazy is that?
• We’ve also been without a dishwasher for over 3 months. I may or may not have squeaked out a single tear at the thought of that, too.

Things get a little batty. (Wokka wokka!)

We were perusing through some of our pre-renovation pictures and came across this before shot of the upstairs hallway:

Hard to believe that was only 3 months ago! When we last left off a few weekends ago, we were busy insulating the hallway:

Here’s how it looks today:

Amazing what some new dry wall, French doors, a jackhammer and a dumpster can do, right?

Here’s what the hallway looks like from inside the guest bedroom:

We put up new drywall at the end of the hall, too. This is the space between the brick wall and the bathroom, right outside the office:

Even without the taping and mudding, everything feels so fresh and clean (so fresh and so clean, clean!). We set up one more trimless window. All it needs is plaster:

And we put up drywall on the office doorway:

We’ve been randomly signing “Scott” on the walls as an homage to the artwork we found in our laundry room, attic and garage:

Don’t worry, we plan on priming right over it so nobody except us will know it’s there. Here’s a view from the end of the hallway looking towards the stairs:

That end of the hallway was Bradley’s big project yesterday. He wanted to add a header in the doorway (we’re big fans of the play-it-way-too-safe method of construction, and this doorway didn’t have a header at all). We’re going for a trimless look for all of our doors upstairs, so we wanted to install and wood frame on the inside of the doorway. And, of course, both sides of the wall need some fresh drywall.

When we removed the trim from around the doorway, we found some neat wallpaper underneath:

Whoever lived here sure loved wallpaper — this is the 5th or 6th pattern we’ve found, and we’ve only been working in one wing of the house. Speaking of wing, check out who decided to visit us on Saturday night:

We were curled up on the couch in the living room — also currently our bedroom — watching TV when something came swooping into the room, inches above our heads. At first we thought it was a bird, but quickly realized it was a bat. He kept swooping down on our heads, so I did the only thing I could think of at the time: I curled up in a ball and started screaming bloody murder.

Bradley ran into the dining room and came back with the first thing he could find — a baseball bat. A bat for the bat. So then my screaming turned into words like, “DON’T HURT HIM!” and “CATCH AND RELEASE!”

Bradley went back into the dining room and came back with an umbrella. He used it to steer the bat into the living room, and that’s when our cat got in on the action. I slammed the living room door and then cracked it open a tiny bit so the dog and I could watch.

Bradley used the umbrella to steer the bat towards an open window and to keep the cat from lunging at our new furry friend. Eventually, the bat made it to the window and wedged himself between the glass and the screen. We gently closed the window, and suddenly the big, bad bat didn’t look so scary anymore. He was smaller than my fist, and with his wings folded in, he looked kind of like a gerbil with beady teeny tiny eyes. He was cuuuuute….but only because he wasn’t flapping in my face. I snapped a picture, and then we went back to watching TV.

Our bat eventually figured out that the screen was open at the bottom, so he flew off. We’re pretty sure he’s back in our attic now, pooping on all of our moving boxes that we haven’t unpacked yet.

When we took the trim off of the hallway entrance, we noticed there was no header above the doorway. What we didn’t notice is that we had basically opened a giant hole into the attic:

The bat must have shimmied down between the walls and come down to explore. Pretty sure he won’t be doing that again — my high-pitched screeching might have permanently damaged his sonar — but just to be on the safe side, Bradley’s working on sealing it up today.

What we learned this weekend:

• We still really hate plastering.
  We actually enjoy putting up insulation and drywall, but plastering is the bane of our existence. We hate it so much that we’re dragging our feet and causing a big delay in finishing up the hallway, guest bedroom and office. We decided to hire out the plastering so we can get on with things. Someone is coming in to give us an estimate today, and if the price is right, he’s hired!
• General rule of life: if all else fails, curl up into a ball and scream till you lose your voice.

Meet our master bedroom.

No matter how hard we try to wish it, our master bedroom just won’t go away. And it isn’t fixing itself either. The only thing left to do is acknowledge its presence and officially document the before pictures. Take a deep breath, people: we begrudgingly invite you into our master bedroom.

Before we got down to the working part, Bradley spent a few hours spying on our neighbors:

Just kidding. Bradley’s measuring a couple of window that need to be replaced. He’s hiding behind a window roller because it doesn’t technically roll anymore. We have to manually roll it up every time we want a little light in the room.

Most of the other window rollers in the house were ripped down during one particularly hilarious hissy fit. It was very Joan Crawford moment, except instead of NO MORE WIRE HANGERS!! it was more like WHAT KINDA ROLLER DOESN’T ROLL?! So far, only 2 rollers on the entire second floor have survived our wrath. They’re both in the room we frequent the least. Ahem.

Anyway, the window panes are so old that they have a wavy look to them, and they make everything look a little blurry.

Check out the Freestyle Painting around the glass. Maybe there was a masking tape shortage when they last renovated the house. Yeah, that must be it. The Blue Tape Shortage of Aught-Nine.

Single-pane glass has an Energy Star rating of Your-Heating-Bill-Will-Bankrupt-You, so we want to get these swapped out pronto. Ahhh, the joys of buying a 130-year-old house. No insulation, crusty windows, energy-sucking boiler. Our goal is to fix all of those problems before Old Man Winter shows up and drains our wallets. We’re starting with the 3 Smurf Room windows and 2 master bedroom windows. These are the 2 master bedroom windows that need help:

The thing in the middle that juts out a little is a chimney. And on the other wall is the radiator:

You can get a better idea of the ceiling height there. Bradley’s 5’10″ if that helps scale it. The ceilings are 112 inches tall, which is about 9.333333 feet. The height really helps open up the room and make it feel even bigger.

On the flip-side of the chimney wall is the entrance to the room. You’ll see some more Freestyle Painting around the door frame:

Please ignore the pile of insulation. That’s the stuff we pulled out of the guest bedroom / hallway wall. We were too tired to carry it up to the attic, so we piled it up in front of the master bedroom until we could barely see the door. It’s all part of our delusion master plan.

We’ve already shared our faux marble turquoise light switch covers:

Those are perfectly complemented by our faux marble pinkish-red plug-in covers:

What color would you call that? Off-red? Rose? Mauve? Also, how exactly do you pronounce mauve? Moev? Or mawv? We say mawv, but it sounds a little too New Yorker to be right. Like kaw-fee (coffee) or bee-a (beer). My absolute favorite New Yorkism ever: brawr (bra).

However you pronounce it, that mauve monstrosity is not going to last much longer in our house. There was some talk of gathering up all of the colorful faceplates and repeatedly running over them with our car, but it didn’t seem like a productive use of our time. It also didn’t seem very sane, so we’re playing it safe and just tossing them in the trash. We’re laughing maniacally as we throw them away, though, so sanity is a moot point.

One of the biggest challenges we’re having right now is figuring out where we’ll put a king-sized bed in this room. All of the walls have something going on:

The fourth wall has a door smack in the middle. After years of living with a queen-sized bed and no bedside tables, we’re being pretty bratty about our master bedroom setup. We want a king-sized bed, 2 bedside tables with drawers, and lamps. The only wall that might work is the wall with the closet, but we’re not sure the bedroom door will fully open with a bed there.

After taking window measurements, we found ourselves staring at the walls, wondering how on earth we would make this a functional bedroom. And that’s when we had a brilliant revelation. We took a couple of measurements and confirmed it: the wall had a hollow space behind it!

We could remove the entire wall, move the closet somewhere else, and have a nice set-in section that would give us plenty of room! Bradley couldn’t wait to have a look at how much hollow space was behind the wall. He ran out of the room and came back with the sledgehammer:

Doesn’t he look so ecstatic? He made the same face when we ate at a Sonic for the first time ever:

Burgers and sledgehammers: it doesn’t take much to keep the boy happy.

Bradley used the sledgehammer to smack a hole in the wall, but the hammer just kept bouncing back. It wouldn’t crack through. Um…turns out he was hitting a stud. Oops! So he knocked another hole next to it:

There was lathe behind the wall, just like we were expecting.

We pulled the wood strips out, reached in to see how much room we had, annnnnnd…

….saw the back the guest bedroom closet. Oh. Crap. The wall was hollow, alright, but there are only about 4 inches to work with. Somehow we got our measurements wrong by a couple of feet.

We blamed it on the fact we had been doing manual labor all day before we got to this project. Our brains weren’t working at full capacity. Maybe we were holding the tape measure upside-down. We needed a nap. The dog ate our homework. No matter what excuse we came up with, we knew it all came down to this: we screwed up.

After a few choice profanities, we grew silent and just stared at the back of the guest bedroom closet through what used to be a perfectly good wall. Then we walked out of the master bedroom, closed the door behind us and stacked our insulation in front of it.

Mistakes: we all make ‘em. But it takes a special type of person to walk away and pretend like it never happened.

To help cleanse ourselves of the residual guilt, we decided to do something uber-productive and totally necessary. Like go up to the attic and look around at stuff. We’ll do whatever it takes to forget.

The attic door, in case you forgot, is in the Purple Room:

Purple walls. Purple trim. Purple door. Purple floors. Prince called. He wants his palette back. Or he wants to move in and pay rent. I forget.

The Purple Room is another one of those close-the-door-and-let-it-get-sucked-into-a-vortex rooms, but it does have one huge redeeming quality:

Brick! We’re such suckers for exposed brick. It’s going to take all of our will power to not go completely overboard and expose every inch of brick in this house. We sometimes struggle with taking things too far — why do it when you can overdo it?? — but admitting we have a problem is the first step. Still, when we need a hit of brick, we go peek at the attic wall. It fills a need and keeps us from going jackhammer-crazy all over the place.

For all of you who have wished us luck in finding some antique artifacts in our attic:

We found some shutters! They’re easily as old as the house itself and are covered in inches of grime. There are 4 windows on the front of the house and we found 3 shutters that look like a perfect fit. Keep your fingers crossed that we’ll find a fourth lying around!

We’re honestly not sure these shutters are even salvageable because they’re so covered in nastiness, but we’d be willing to give them a power wash if we find the missing one.

Those shutters, by the way, are the only thing we found in the attic. A few weeks ago, a sweet elderly couple dropped by the house to chit-chat, and they told us they were hired to clean up the house after the foreclosure. Apparently there was a lot of “junk” in the attic and garage, and they got rid of everything. We were a little sad, but also a little relieved because it means less work for us.

Sorry to disappoint, but unless we find something really cool hidden in a wall somewhere, our biggest finds have been a block of wood, a tin of flux, a roll of wire, a DVD and a half-empty can of beer. And that busted chimney that someone sealed up and hid under the guest bedroom floor.

What we learned from our venture into the forbidden zone:

• Measure twice, bust through wall once.
• The master bedroom may end up being the guest bedroom, and the guest bedroom may end up being the master bedroom.
• None of our friends are going to visit us after they see that last bullet point.