The spray foam insulation is simply awesome at getting the R-factor we wanted, but not so great at not dispersing itself around the room. And it's a real pain to get out of your hair. After a summer of looking at it we finally got around to covering it up.
In case you don't know it, wood is lovely to look at but it's not static. It dries and it twists and the pieces aren't all the same. Kind of like my knitting sometimes.... which makes using it not as easy as it looks. There were a lot of interesting sounds being emitted from the man as he worked on this seemingly simple task.
Also, he's kind of a perfectionist. And we had not installed any lights yet when he was doing this. The most entertaining part though - using the laser level. It made us laugh hysterically and then try to figure out what looked like the best compromise.
Meanwhile, downstairs in the kitchen....Chad set me up to sand the walls. It sounds so simple, sand the walls.
First step, plastic the kitchen off from the rest of the house. Claustrophobics need not apply. I made him take some pictures of my ridiculous outfit and to prove that I actually do work on the house. He may or may not have sent them to me. Next time, I will have him take the photos on my camera. He's a very busy man at the moment - more on that later.
Voila! Post sanding miracle. I had him check on me a couple times. There were some technical issues. Like the sanding pad not staying attached to the sander. Those things can really fly. Good thing there was plastic to stop it. I swear, it wasn't me. The sander chose that particular job to have the velcro fail. Velcro! I had no idea that a sander used velcro to attach the sanding discs. Huh. I also learned a lot about my caulking technique and we discussed how we might approach the scene differently upstairs (read: I suck at it and the material doesn't sand well when the expert does it either).
Giant hole in the floor in the middle of the house....from the former furnace grate. If you recall from previous posts, the furnace was still amazing at heating the house, but slightly dangerous and everyone's feet were susceptible to having grate imprints seared onto the bottom of their paws. Searing is for burgers, not for paws. While we already took care of the furnace upgrade, we still had the big grate in the floor. One dog was terrified of stepping on it and stuff falls through a grate. So we installed an interim cover. Ultimately we hope to incorporate some kind of ladder cover thing into the stairs. Whenever we tackle that. I'm betting on 2017 but hoping for 2016. We only dropped the cover into the crawlspace twice. Ok, three times. I'm not admitting any more. Nothing major got broken, therefore success.
And most delightful of all, ending the day in the back yard with a fire in the bowl. No tails got singed either. More success!
