When You Think a Job is Going to be Really Bad...

Well, in rereading my last post, I see that I promised pictures of rooms with drywall, but that will have to wait.

Last week, because he is a smart man who knows I need advance notice, Troy forewarned me that we would be working in the attic on the weekend. It was going to be an ugly job but he thought we could do it in an afternoon and once it was done, we wouldn't have to do it again.

What was this ugly job? Preparing to insulate the attic by putting in channel vents so that the attic would still have ventilation after we insulate. (You are not surprised to hear that the last people did not do that when they blew insulation in the attic.) So we were going to have to dig out the insulation from where it didn't belong and then add the vents. On a hot sunny day. In the attic.

So yeah. I got used to the idea and geared myself up to be helpful.

The afternoon arrived and Troy beckons me up to the attic through the oh-so-roomy access hole.

 Here I come!

 The attic is split into two separate parts. This is the first half that we tackled:

 Crawling around on pieces of plywood that span the joists, we manage to get the work done.

Just make sure to avoid the knob and tube wiring...it's live!

We got almost the whole first part done before needing a break to drink and cool down. I convinced Troy to finish the last three sections so that we could truly be half done. We then made our way downstairs to what at first felt like a meat locker. We didn't have enough vent panels so Troy made a run to Menards and I tried to cool down.

When he got back, we "suited up" again and headed into the other half:

Lo and behold, because of the way the roof runs, there were far fewer sections to do in this half so we were done in a jiffy!

This is a picture of the chimney that runs up from our living room/dining room.

No, the angle's not bad--it really runs on a slant. They were aiming for a certain spot on the roof. This chimney is no longer used and in fact has been removed in the basement. (Without adding any support for the weight. For some reason our floor sags there...) Troy and I talked about taking it out, but we just couldn't justify the energy it would take. Of course, Troy has since taken measures to support the weight of it so it should stop sinking.

And here we are near the end.

Both of us came to the conclusion that it was not as bad as we thought it was going to be.

Next up...we'll be spending the fourth of July blowing insulation. Let's hope we can get that done in one day!