Insulation and Drywall

The insulation. It is almost done. To start, Noah applied a layer of spray foam insulation. This allowed us to seal all of the cracks and get a good base for the R-40 we were aiming for. This turned out to be a crazy process. Noah started knowing that he only had 30 seconds to move tanks around before the nozzle would seal itself shut. Each set of canisters came with 3 extra nozzle tips, so it allowed for the roof to be sprayed in sections. Well, the first section ended with Andrew having an asthma-type reaction to the chemicals, and Noah also short of breath. So, Noah finished the job himself with a ventilator without incident.


NOAH SPRAYING IN SPRAY-FOAM INSULATION


THE CANISTERS THAT MIX CHEMICALLY AT THE NOZZLE TO CREATE SPRAY FOAM INSULATION

On top of the spray foam layer, R-25 fiberglass bats were put in place. With the pitch of the roof, some areas of the roof were hard to reach, but it is all done now. Well, except the 2 runs that Noah found last night that will need to be redone. But we'll tackle that tonight.

FIBERGLASS BATTING INSULATION

In order to get R-40, the 3rd layer of insulation is this rigid foam, also known as "blueboard". It is being nailed to the rafters and then a layer of plastic sheeting will be applied on top of it to create a vapor barrier so that we do not have water condensing behind the sheet rock. We are maybe half-way done with the blueboard. Andrew just left on Saturday night, so Noah and Mindy will finish the rest of the blueboard and then the rest of the drywall as well. We still have a lot of work to do, but we will have a few hours every night after the kids go to bed, plus weekends, plus Noah's holidays from the University.

RIGID FOAM INSULATION ("BLUEBOARD")

We tiled the bathroom floor before moving in so that we could place a toilet (a major necessity). Tile that matches will be placed in the hall from entry door to back door and under the wood stove. That will happen in a few weeks after the insulation is finished.

MAIN FLOOR BATHROOM (PORCELAIN TILE)


FROM THE FRONT DOOR VIEWING THE WALKWAY TO THE BACKDOOR

Again, we need to tile the floor under the woodstove, but we went ahead and hooked it up so that we can use it as a source of heat. It works great for this solid house we've built! And we love that it fits so nicely in the nook of the stairwell. On the left is the stairwell going down to the basement. On the right is the stairwell going up to the upper floor where the bedrooms will be. The stove is Jotul's Black Bear. We were sad to have to cover the black bears decorating the sides with the heat shields. Oh well.

THE WOOD STOVE

We have a lot to do, huh?!

THE KITCHEN

Well, this is their future bedroom. Right now we are all living in the basement while we finish up the drywall and do some painting. And then we can spread out through the house as we finish up each room.

GIRLS BEDROOM

We took a break yesterday to clean up the family room to put up the Christmas Tree. All of us were on our hands and knees scrubbing the floor to clean up the drywall/mud dust. The kids were great helpers since their motivation was the Christmas tree to come when we were finished. We strapped on our snowshoes and ventured out back to cut down one of our trees. Since ours is a mature forest, our evergreens are a little spindly, but we like our cute tree anyway.

FAMILY ROOM WITH ITS FIRST CHRISTMAS TREE (STILL BEING DECORATED)