The Attic Smells Different Now

It seems almost impossible to believe that we could have started this project in February, but Google assures me that I took the initial photos for this project on February 16, and who am I to argue?

And the project is... insulation in the attic! I know, I know... we're so cutting edge.

Chris stapling the insulation

This took longer than you'd imagine.

The easy part was adding insulation to the lower walls of the attic, although even that seemed to take forever, mostly because there's all this stuff in the attic, so we had to keep shifting all the attic-stuff from wall to wall in order to get at the next section to work on.

Then the hard part -- sorting out the ceiling. This occupied most of the next work day at the farm. We decided that since the ceiling is so high and we're not actually using the space for anything other than storage, to build a kind of false ceiling for insulation batting to rest on and be draped across. Like so.

See how the peak of the roof is actually beyond where the insulation is?

We figured this way, there would be a clear cold zone, plus we wouldn't have to try to deal with getting the insulation way up to the roof peak. That makes it sound like this was less work. It was not. It's not that it was terrible, but insulation is one of those things that isn't heavy, it's just totally awkward and floppy, like trying to string a slinky across a gap.

We did eventually get it all in place, and then took a break from installing insulation over our heads in a place where we could stand up... in order to install insulation underfoot, in the "real" attic where you have to mostly crouch down and try to keep your balance on the joists lest you go crashing through the ceiling and suddenly create a lot of plaster work for yourself.

And by "we," I mean "Chris." I'm usually not claustrophobic, but that attic makes me want to scream.

So fluffy and warm!

But eventually, we got back to the big attic to add the finishing touch -- craft paper to cover the interior side of the insulation and keep it from dropping strands of fiberglass all over everything. This, too, turned out to be rather more involved than initially hoped, but it also took up far less of the roll of craft paper than I was expecting.

Speaking of pillowy...

The unexpected bonus of all this work is that now the entire attic smells like brown paper bags, which is, at least in my opinion, an improvement over the previous smell of... whatever it is that old houses smell like. Old wood, guano, and dirt? In any case, brown paper bags is definitely better.

This summer never got super hot -- we never even bothered install the window air conditioner in the bedroom at the farm -- so it was hard to tell if the insulation was helping to keep the house cooler. But hopefully this winter we'll notice some benefit!