Final work week
It’s our final work week before the drywall ceilings start to go up on Monday (August 22) and we still have quite the to do list:
List as of Monday, August 15 – it gets added on to each day (luckily, things are checked off, too!)
We started the week with new can light installation – we took the old ones down because they aren’t sealed or insulation contact rated. In some instances, we’re putting the can lights very close to where they were before. So you’d think I would have taken photos of that before demo. Nope. Oops. At least we can kind of tell by the conduit we left up, and by searching through some photos. (Ha, while proof-reading this, Steven told me he marked where everything was but then painted over it! Oops!)
In other instances, like our master bedroom, we’re not putting things exactly where they were before. It made me crazy how the ugly circular vents were randomly placed in the room, and didn’t align at all with the lights. So Steven fixed that, and has been discussing the placement of everything that will be visibly exposed in the ceiling with me.
We’ll have normal vents, now, yay!
When things align <3 <3 <3 (the vents and lights align, and the fan box is centered on them)
And of course, while Steven was installing lights, he found ANOTHER smelly spot to demolish (that we left for another day). Ha, at this point, I wonder if we should have just demolished all of the interior drywall?! Just kidding. Kind of.
On Tuesday, we put insulation around the ductwork, to make it a bit more efficient and help prevent condensation. We ordered big rolls of fiberglass insulation (which actually have a teeny R value, but it’s a vapor barrier),
Sadly, that is not a giant burrito
that had to be cut to size (and then trimmed, so we have a flap to fold over on itself) to fit around the ducts.
Where there was not a supply duct, or anything else in the way, wrapping the ductwork around, then screwing it in (AHHHHH, we’re putting holes in our brand new ducts) wasn’t too bad. It got tricky around the obstructions though.
SO SHINY
Insulated ductwork over guest bedroom
Insulated ductwork over master bedroom and bathroom
I think I will be itching for a few more days. Ugh. We didn’t finish the insulation on Tuesday, and took a break from it for a day.
On Wednesday Steven demolished the drywall (and put in a new support piece around the conduit) in the newest stinky spot so I could paint it. I painted it, as well as our linen closet (which we had painted part of on Saturday) because it had a funky wood smell (not to be confused with the funky animal smells which are the reason for this whole project).
I didn’t paint that one piece of wood because Steven had just put it in
Steven installed the hallway lights,
View looking north
View looking south
and had to get creative with the light that goes in our ALL tile shower. The six-inch diameter can wasn’t fitting (too big), so he got a five-inch diameter can… which was too small. So he did some handy work with the pliers for awhile until the six-inch one fit.
Steven is sitting in the attic above the shower, picking off pieces of tile with the pliers, to make the opening bigger. It’s a dark and confusing photo, but it was 9:30 pm, so it’s the best I could do!
On Thursday, we got back to work on the duct insulation. We were hoping to finish insulating the supply ducts, then begin taping… but that was a no go. Cutting all the special pieces for the supply ducts took too long.
And besides cutting them to special shapes, I also had to trim the insulation so the flaps overlap each other blah blah blah blah blah. Blah.
But now all the insulation is up and I can go to town taping it this weekend! CAN’T WAIT! This stuff is gonna be so awesome to tape!
Steven got a bit of electrical work done between putting the insulation up – he put conduit and wire to one can light in our bedroom and can now daisy-chain the other three to it. He also ran conduit from a new fan switch to our new fan box. Our master bedroom fan wiring previously wasn’t in conduit, and the wiring was all chewed up (and installed wrong, anyway) so it’s never worked since we moved in. Sorry, Data, it’s gonna work now.
So… yeah. Now it’s Friday and we have three days to get stuff done. I am not even going to scroll to the top of the post and see what we have left! The next post you see about all this should be me saying the space is ready for new ceilings!
Themocracy
Hate fiberglass! Well done for dealing with all of it! It’s all looking great and so clean. I never thought of this before but has ur house been super hot while all of this is going on or do u have some window AC units
Yes! And it’s going to look even better when I put the tape up!
So yeah, the AC has been on, but for a long time, that was without ducts… and that is not very efficient, lol. It gets pretty hot in the attic in the afternoon 🙂 No window units or fans on.
I’m so impressed with everything you guys have gotten done already! Good luck with the rest of it this weekend.
Thank you!!!! 🙂
Wow, okay, so referring to my comment from a few posts in the future–fiberglass insulation DOES make you itchy, so I guess that’s why my mom told me to stay away from it.
This part sounds/looks like such a pain. I’m sure you were quite relieved to be done with it!