We spent another weekend working on the bedroom renovations in Pete’s parent’s house. And it’s looking good.
Instead of uncovering 50 gallons of bat poop (that was last week, which I posted about here), we completely covered the space with brand-spankin’ new insulation. Admittedly, this is not new technology, but I was so excited to learn that you can buy insulation comes in an encapsulated variety; it’s fully wrapped in a thin plastic to limit the amount of insultaion fibers that would otherwise fall on you during installation. We picked up 9 encapsulated rolls that covered 31-sq.ft each (and eventually found that we could return 2, whoop for $35 savings) for $17 each, as well as 10 rolls of standard, faced insulation for the walls (less than $9 for 40-sq-ft).
Fun fact? A Toyota Camry will hold more rolls of insulation than a Jeep Patriot. Oh yeah, believe it.
A new window was purchased and installed as well. It wasn’t this brand, but similar. It’s the first time any of us installed one, so lots of caulking, shimming, and leveling ensued to make sure we were doing an A-OK job. The old window came out easily, and while it really needed to be replaced, the frame which it sat in was in great condition. We thought it would have to be rebuilt, and were prepared/well-researched in how to do so.
It’s probably much easier to hang a window from the outside, but we made due by leaning out the second story to caulk and screw it in. The window we picked out is double-hung which allowed us easier access to the flashing that we needed access to, which meant Pete could drill the screws to attach the window from the inside too.
Back to the insulation. Because they bought encapsulated for the ceiling, the insulation went up really quickly and easily. Within an hour, the whole ceiling was completed (including the vapor barrier plastic that was stapled to the joists).
The faced insulation went up smoothly too:
Among the more noticeable changes, we were surprised at how soundproof the room is now with proper insulation.
Next up? Drywall. Hopefully we’ll have more to share by the end of February!
2 Comments
For the drywall, are you guys planning to strap the ceiling? We wrote an article on strapping here that is useful, especially when dealing with old houses like this. When we did this project the first time we didn’t know about strapping – which made the job about 100 times harder than it needed to be.
http://www.oneprojectcloser.com/strapping-ceiling-joists-ceiling-drywall-installation-prep/
I can guarantee that we will be looking into this… immediately. Thanks for the tip, Fred!