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the attic, part 2 -- drywalling
feed them, and they will come
We were anxious to get to
the drywalling since it would mark a milepost in the attic renovation, a
phase where we could see a real and dramatic change from the way it was
before.
We were lucky to have Dad
and Malinda come out to help us get started, get things wired (a huge,
huge help, since they basically got all the electrical, cable, and phone
outlets wired AND showed us how to do all sorts of nifty wiring stuff so
we don't go electrocuting ourselves), and show us
the ropes for putting up drywall. Thanks to them, the back third of our
attic and the area around the stairwell were done by the time they left and we were well on our way.
But it's a big room, with
a lot of extra work involved at every step, and they're only human, after
all, so there was still a lot left to do. Namely, the remaining
slanted sections of the ceiling and the very large dormer on the south
side of the house. And of course, we hadn't exactly made it easy on
ourselves with the insulation we chose, which caused its very own special
set of problems.
See, we did our research.
And everything we read said R38 insulation for the ceilings and R25 for
the walls for homes in the Pacific Northwest. Which seemed pretty high,
considering it was the same values recommended for Wyoming, but whatever.
Well, we wanted to do this
right so we intended to put in the correct value of insulation. Little did
we know how expensive it was. And since we needed to cover so much area,
well, it ended up costing 3x what we had originally budgeted, and that was
after we had decided that there was no way we could afford the R25, let
alone R38, so we would buy the highest we could possibly manage: R21.
We did, however, get a big price break for buying all the rolls at 24 inch
widths even though only the rafters are that wide. It ended up being
cheaper to buy enough for the whole attic in the wider widths than to buy
just what we needed for the ceiling and then a narrower width for the
walls. Not the most ideal situation, but it was the best we could do and
still be able to do the project.
Two problems, though. The
higher R value meant a thicker bat, which were going over Styrofoam vent
baffles (see part 1) that already were taking up
an inch of space in the rafters. So by the time we had the insulation
installed, there wasn't any give whatsoever and it made hanging the
drywall infinitely harder, especially on the slanted sections of the
ceiling. It was like trying to cram 4 tennis balls in a can that's only
meant to hold 3. Which, yeah. And then doing it at an angle, above
your head.
The other problem, which
we only found out after it was too late, was that the information we had
on what R value to use was wrong. Oh, the R38 for the ceiling was right,
although we could've gotten away with as low as R19, but for the walls, we
really only needed R11. We've never felt a closer kinship to Homer Simpson
than when we found that out. (We were somewhat vindicated later when we
learned that because we were insulating an attic, the recommended R
value really was R25, but that was cold consolation (pun intended)
considering we'd had to smash up the insulation so much when we put up the
drywall that we'd negated whatever extra insulating value it had.)
But those're the pitfalls
of doing the work yourself and it was too late to do anything about it.
Unfortunately, as I said above, it made the actual drywall work extremely
difficult. Just holding the sheets in place took at least two very strong
people pressing with all their weight against the drywall and then a third
person to tack it in place. Plus, we started out using drywall screws
alone -- in theory, the right idea, in practice, sucktacular -- so it took
so much work (and aggravation) just getting the sheets tacked up that
everyone's energy was wiped out after only a few sheets.
And then, of course,
the infamous angles. Our roof has a fairly steep pitch and the kneewalls
are only about 5 feet high, not to mention the house was built 90+
years ago. And then there's a substantial dormer that cuts the space
in half and none of the crossbeams are level with each other...it
was like trying to drywall a room in an
M.C. Escher drawing.
It was all such a problem
that by the time my friends from
work came out to help us, it'd been two months since we'd made any
progress on the drywall. We coaxed them out with promises of a spread the
likes of which they'd never seen, which may or may not have been an
exaggeration. We did our damnedest, though, to live up to the hype.
Including Sal's famous wings, a recipe so incredibly good that it has the
power to bend people to your will and must therefore only be wielded with
the greatest of care. Or when you need help drywalling your attic.
Our only regret? Not
bribing them to come out sooner. See, if we'd only watched
Witness lately, we
would've been reminded that the Amish have it all figured out:
lots of food + lots of
people = barns raised in a day
Anyway, thanks to Steve's
expertise (the vice-president at NWCM and a very dear friend) and the help
and hard work of oTim, Eric, and Ruth, we not only managed to bang out
the rest of those sections that had been holding us up for so long, we did
it in about five hours.
Among other things, we
also learned that drywall nails are your friends (use them to tack the
sheets up, then go back and use screws to firmly fix them in place), the
secret to drywalling difficult sections is not to overthink it (instead of
trying to drywall around the rafter beams, just cut slots in the drywall
for them to go through), and that "hot mud" is a gift from the gods (it's
like regular drywalling mud, except it "sets" after a certain time period;
the advantage is that it doesn't contract so you can fill especially large
gaps in one application).
Oh, we still have
drywalling to do, make no mistake. But it's work that we can do ourselves
-- the kind of work we thought most of the project would be, originally.
More importantly, though:
Master suite, here we
come!
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