I Do Not Like The Attic.

December 26:

After enjoying a day of playing with toys and eating Chex Party Mix, we are back to work. We are now on to the task of insulating the ceiling and attic.

This seems harmless enough, just throw some fuzzy stuff up there and call it a day. But that is what the formerly naive Sue thought. Now I am the old cranky crick-in-the-back-and-bruised-butt-and-knees Sue who knows better.

I suit up into my bunny suit and climb into the attic. The attic above the bathroom and bedrooms is substantially smaller than the one over the living room. I have about 3 feet of clearance at the highest point and all sorts of A/C vents to get in the way.

The first issue is that we don't get to just throw the stuff up there. We first need to put in baffles to ensure we get proper airflow or something like that. Another addition to my vocabulary. The baffles are just little Styrofoam ridged sheets that I am supposed to tack into the roof beams before I put in the insulation. Seems straightforward except they are thin Styrofoam so every time I try to attach them to the wall, the staples are going right through them. If I bump it, the staples go right through them. If I sneeze, the staples go right through them. There were quite a few inappropriate exclamations audible in the Collins home as I fought with these buggers.

Here is what it looks like after I was half done:
So, we proceed to get the full ceiling insulated with R30. The house is getting warmer by the second, I can just feel it. Jake feeds it up to me and I stuff it in place like a puzzle. If you never have dealt with insulation before, it looks all cushy and fluffy but in reality it is itchy nasty miserable stuff.

As we are wrapping up the 2nd bedroom part of the attic I notice signs that we probably had a little woodland critter living in the attic at one point in time. They relocated a bunch of the insulation into the back corner. So now I am freaking out waiting for some rabid ferocious monster to attack. But, alas, I think our visitor has moved out already. So, I throw the insulation on top of their fluffy bed and get the heck out of there (notice the bed in the back corner of this picture?)

That should be all I needed to do, right... wrong. We have extra insulation and we know that the attic space over the living room only has a thin layer of insulation on it currently. So, up I crawl to the other side and throw in a bunch more itchy nasty miserable stuff.

Attic Insulation - DONE. May I never have to go back up there again.