A Simple Home Improvement Project

The death of our a/c unit sparked many projects this summer.  We anticipated doing all of these eventually, just not quite so rapidly.  Upon replacing our a/c unit, we replaced the house windows.  Then we decided that since we were insulating the rest of the house with great new windows, the coloring room needed to be insulated as well (since it's either too hot or too cold most months out of the year).  When Jeff refinished that room back before Justin's birth, he insulated the walls, but the windows and doors leaked air like crazy.  We also knew we were losing a lot of cool air to the attic above since that had never been insulated either.  With all the other updates taking place, and after months of planning and research, Jeff went and rented a machine to blow insulation, and the insulation to put into the attic.

It took two trips to bring everything home, but fortunately we live close to Home Depot, where we're pretty sure we're going to receive our very own personalized parking space.  Jeff and I got up early on Saturday morning to get things rolling. The plan was to avoid not only the heat of the day, but also having this turn into an all day event.  Dressed in ratty jeans, long sleeved shirts, gloves, and face masks we were doing excellent impressions of Michael Jackson in our bid to avoid getting the insulation on us. 

Jeff crawled up a ladder and into what we laughingly refer to as our attic space.  It's quite possibly the smallest attic space imaginable and to raise extra money around here, we've even considered opening it up to people looking to improve their spelunking skills.  With nails protruding from all angles, beams spaced ridiculously far apart, and no place to stand, this area is a special kind of hell.  Jeff managed, somehow, to get situated and we began the process.  I began feeding the insulation into the machine and Jeff sprayed it throughout the attic over the garage. 

 

Things were moving along at a surprisingly rapid pace.  By this time the kids had awoken, and after feeding them a quick breakfast, I returned to assist Jeff.  I turned on a movie for them and promised that if they were good and let us finish this project, we'd do something fun later in the day.  They were excited to watch something and both Jeff and I felt we could have everything done well before the movie concluded.  And that's when it happened.  An ominous crack sounded, with Jeff's hip appearing through the ceiling.  A result of him adjusting positions.  His hip went straight through the dry wall, and all of our attempts to push the broken pieces back together merely made the hole larger.  This new turn of events brought "Operation Insulation" to a grinding halt. 

A few phone calls and some research on the internet showed us how to fix it and Jeff made yet another run to Home Depot (#3, not counting research trips) to pick up the necessary supplies.  Neither of us had ever attempted this kind of repair job, but one of the many joys of home ownership is learning how to (poorly) fix things yourself.  We worked together as a team, taking turns cutting old dry wall, measuring, re-measuring, and checking on the kids.  We were extremely pleased with ourselves as we slipped the new dry wall into place, and didn't have to do any extra cutting.  It went a little too smoothly and both of us expected something else to go wrong, like maybe have the entire ceiling fall on our heads.  To our relief, things remained in place and we decided to get back to the original project. 

 

"Operation Insulation" resumed and to our delight we realized we were only about an hour away from finishing up.  Due to the delay our patch job created, the kids' movie finished way before we did.  As we were putting things away, we noticed Justin's face peaking out from the door's window.  Jeff and I went over to reassure him that we were almost done and that if both kids could just be patient a bit longer, we would uphold our end of the bargain. 

The fact that he was shirtless should really come as no surprise to anyone who knows him.  The fact that he also had green hair really shouldn't have surprised us either.  In hindsight, things really had been too quite in the house, and we'd been outside far too long. Justin informed us that he'd gotten bored and wanted green hair.  So naturally he'd opened the child proof latched cabinets under the bathroom sink, and gotten out the green hair spray.  While we secretly applaud his "take charge" attitude, we did not let him see our amusement.  Jeff headed back to Home Depot (Trip #4 to return the insulation machine while I began our third project of the day:  Dress Justin and wash the green right out of his hair.

So today we learned some very important lessons:

1. Any project that we undertake will take all day.
2. Any project we undertake will always result in having to start at least two more.
3. Any project will take multiple trips to Home Depot.
4. Any time the children are too quiet, we need to be afraid.
5. We've really learned how to work well as a team and can tackle more than we thought we could.
6. We should have done the insulation above the garage years ago.  We could felt it's effects immediately. 
7. Now we need to replace the door leading to the garage so that it too will help insulate that room.
8. The only downside?  Now we really don't have any attic space.