some insulation

We’ve been insulating the downstairs recently. This isn’t very exciting, but has been rewarding as the walls start to look more like walls. Also, it was a year ago today that we closed on the house.

When we insulated the future dining room earlier in the year, something went wrong that we did not realize until very recently, something that made the process easily twice as labor intensive and less effective. Let me explain…

The first time that we went to buy the insulation, we couldn’t find a width that was close to what we needed. We assummed this was because of a difference between how old and new houses were constructed. It was a dumb mistake, but understandable in our newness. So we bought insulation that was almost 2x as wide as we needed and the cut it down to size. This cutting sucked and took a long time. The insulation went in less perfectly and looked a little ragged. The extra time taken and less than stellar result were real motivation killers.

Anyway, the last time that we went to buy insulation, we noticed a size that we’d somehow overlooked on all of our trips before, a size that was exactly what we were looking for (15″). It turns out that having insulation that just fits makes the process move so much more quickly.

It is this kind of thing that, while harmless, colors our experience in working on this house. For most things large and small, there is this feeling that we might be doing something goofy and just not know until later, after many hours of misdirected work. This feeling has gotten less strong as we’ve gained some history, but it is certainly still there.

We’re still waiting for the help in fixing the termite damage downstairs. This prevents us from being able to finish insulating (and thus drywalling and everything after). We’ve just covered that part of the wall with plastic to try and keep the cold air out.