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I took the day off and insulated part of the living room today.
For those as don't know, I'm slooooowly working on transforming my tiny garage into an art studio. And by 'slowly' I mean I've had the house for two years and only just finished taking off all the old drywall a few months ago.
Removing the drywall revealed that none of the walls were insulated; even in a garage, the walls shared with living spaces should have been. No big deal, though, the drywall had to come off anyway because it was nasty and a lot of wiring needs to be done. I was going to insulate after said wiring is done, since it makes it easier, but damn it, it's cold. So I bought two bags of icky pink insulation and wodged them up in the stud bays this afternoon, on the wall the garage shares with the kitchen and living room.
Of course, I was an idiot and didn't look at how-tos BEFORE I bought the insulation (Duh. Duh. Duh) and bought faced insulation (should have been unfaced; you don't want vapor barriers on interior walls, and this is exterior-ish NOW but will be interior after project completion). However, I don't own a car, so I couldn't bring it back and fix my mistake. Instead I got advice from dad and installed it backwards without stapling the facing, which should mitigate the vapor barrier affects.
There's still an uninsulated bit behind the chimney because I can't figure out how to get in there enough to remove the last bits of drywall (it's a two foot wide chimney, which is less than three inches out from the studs, but not flush with them. I have no idea how they got the drywall IN there!). I did manage to get it behind the water heater.
Things I learned today
1. Buy unfaced insulation for interior walls
2. Sometimes the right tool for the job is a wodging stick.
3. Part of my problem with the project is my general indecisiveness, but part of it is that most of the construction I worked on with my folks was fundamentally new construction, because we took off the entire top floor of the house and rebuilt it new. Here I'm doing more of a retro-fit -- and I'm encountering prior retrofits -- so there's more questions at every step about what to preserve, what to destroy, and what to re-do or change.
4. Always buy MORE filter-masks! My last one broke, and I didn't want to take the time to go to the hardware store, so I wore a thin fine weave dish cloth as a bandana to keep out the worst (Because 'not very good' is better than nothing). PLUS SIDE: I looked like a home-improvement bandit!
(Obv. some retrofit work went on in my folks' house; a lot, in fact. But I wasn't nearly as involved with that as I was with the complete tear-down and rebuild).
So. Is can be warm and toasty now?
For those as don't know, I'm slooooowly working on transforming my tiny garage into an art studio. And by 'slowly' I mean I've had the house for two years and only just finished taking off all the old drywall a few months ago.
Removing the drywall revealed that none of the walls were insulated; even in a garage, the walls shared with living spaces should have been. No big deal, though, the drywall had to come off anyway because it was nasty and a lot of wiring needs to be done. I was going to insulate after said wiring is done, since it makes it easier, but damn it, it's cold. So I bought two bags of icky pink insulation and wodged them up in the stud bays this afternoon, on the wall the garage shares with the kitchen and living room.
Of course, I was an idiot and didn't look at how-tos BEFORE I bought the insulation (Duh. Duh. Duh) and bought faced insulation (should have been unfaced; you don't want vapor barriers on interior walls, and this is exterior-ish NOW but will be interior after project completion). However, I don't own a car, so I couldn't bring it back and fix my mistake. Instead I got advice from dad and installed it backwards without stapling the facing, which should mitigate the vapor barrier affects.
There's still an uninsulated bit behind the chimney because I can't figure out how to get in there enough to remove the last bits of drywall (it's a two foot wide chimney, which is less than three inches out from the studs, but not flush with them. I have no idea how they got the drywall IN there!). I did manage to get it behind the water heater.
Things I learned today
1. Buy unfaced insulation for interior walls
2. Sometimes the right tool for the job is a wodging stick.
3. Part of my problem with the project is my general indecisiveness, but part of it is that most of the construction I worked on with my folks was fundamentally new construction, because we took off the entire top floor of the house and rebuilt it new. Here I'm doing more of a retro-fit -- and I'm encountering prior retrofits -- so there's more questions at every step about what to preserve, what to destroy, and what to re-do or change.
4. Always buy MORE filter-masks! My last one broke, and I didn't want to take the time to go to the hardware store, so I wore a thin fine weave dish cloth as a bandana to keep out the worst (Because 'not very good' is better than nothing). PLUS SIDE: I looked like a home-improvement bandit!
(Obv. some retrofit work went on in my folks' house; a lot, in fact. But I wasn't nearly as involved with that as I was with the complete tear-down and rebuild).
So. Is can be warm and toasty now?
no subject
Date: 2011-11-12 02:02 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 04:49 am (UTC)From:The next project *should* be the new bathroom fan, which'll unfortunately involve mucking about in the loose blown-in insulation in the attic. Blech.