Empty Attic

The old attic insulation needed removed and fast. Hubby called the guys from Clean Crawls. They came and they cleaned out the attic including all the wood debris.

You saw the before of the attic when it was full of the old insulation. This is the after, clean of everything except the old knob and tube. (If you look closely you can see them - little white spots in the picture)

Halloween and a Year of Firsts

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. It's a family thing. It started when my sister was born (Halloween 1981 - or was it 1982?)

This year was our first Halloween in our first house. We only got 5 knocks at the door and had loads of leftover candy making me a little sad. I was expecting more kids in costume but what do you do?

Our first trick or treaters were our awesome and very creative neighbors. Little Chloe was dressed as a combo-princess/mermaid.

Hubby thinks all the kids were scared away from the caution tape and crazy pumpkins lining the front porch (and maybe by the fact that our place looks like the 'Old Man Withers' house at the moment).
Our friends think that maybe the kids were scared away by all the old people inside doing jello shots.
But of all the firsts this year the last one is the best. My baby sis (shown below) celebrated her birthday this year as a first-time mommy. I'm not biased or anything - but that's the cutest bumble bee that I've ever seen. FYI - This photo totally stolen from their blog (www.jmansonsquared.blogspot.com) where you can view pictures of the cutest bumble bee EVER!

Insulation Woes

There are things that I'm very willing to do in this house remodel and things I'm not. Most things I can be convinced to help with. Some things I'm actually excited to do. And a few things I have refused. Entering the attic is one of these things. It's not that I have a fear of small dark quarters or any major phobias that would keep me from the attic. But after venturing just my head through the small hole in our closet, it just didn't feel like a place I wanted to go.

The short story about our attic is that it housed not only old insulation (blown-in, old school cellulose - tested/no asbestos), but also had dozens and dozens of old knob and tube wiring that kept the majority of our overhead lighting running.

The first thing that needed to be done was add additional insulation around the perimeter of the attic - where there was none currently. So hubby ordered like a hundred of these funny little things called baffles that help air circulation between the roof and the insulation (I think). He also ordered a bunch of huge rolls of insulation to go between the edge of the attic and the blown-in stuff.

Armed with his attic suit, handy dandy hubby braved our attic to insulate the perimeter.
Below is a picture of hubby's handmade knee pads. Yes they are duct taped to his jeans. Awesome, right? I didn't know he had made these and when I came around the corner I laughed so hard I almost fell over.

All suited up and only one place to go. After a couple of hours braving the crowded and dark corners of the attic, hubby conceded, came down and declared that all of the blown-in insulation had to go. It was basically smothering all of the old knob and tube and was a potential fire hazard. So instead of being nearly done with our attic/insulation project it was back to square one.

Baffles.

Cold Nights, Warm Walls

The house is covered in polka-dots on the outside with live wiring on the inside. It's PERFECT for a Halloween haunted house! It may be hard to see, but if you look closely you can see the little white polka-dots that were drilled when the insulation was blown in on Monday. They must have drilled over 10o holes in the siding.

Add the new holes to our already scraped and primed, patchy paint and it's really starting to look like a sad little house. We have promised our neighbors that it will only be an eyesore until next summer when we can paint!
Something we didn't know about blowing in insulation is that it makes a mess!! Especially if you forget to cover new electrical outlet boxes. It was pretty hilarious going around the house and seeing all of the little explosions through the walls. It's only shredded newspapers so it was easy to clean up, but a very odd site to come home to.