Xiaoniu 小妞

On the one hand I believe we just went on a shopping spree at Lowes, but in reality I know that all we did was make a bunch of work for me us. We actually went on Thursday night, on the last day that our 10% coupon was valid and loaded up both my truck and Sue’s car. Both Sue and Emelia suffered through it all without too much permanent damage.

I’ve already started to put our purchases to work. First up was a screen door. Both Sue and I like having the front door open. It is a nice feeling to have fresh air coming in and being able to open up the house to the outside. With the door closed all the time it felt like we were purposefully keeping to ourselves. Well, that is no longer the case. Saturday morning I installed the door with the screen. The decorative glass will have to be put into storage until winter.

Second was a new fireplace door. We’re definitely out of the fireplace season, but I’m tired of looking at the broken door that is in place now with its redneck style fix. Nothing completes a living room like a broken fireplace door replaced with a garbage bag and electrical tape. Nothing. Seeing as the original door has been irreversibly broken for over a year and half it was time for a replacement. We had to order it so we won’t have it for a couple weeks.

Next up was stocking up on materials for properly insulating the attic. I’d love to go nuts and hire a contractor to assess the house and make all kinds of changes to improve everything at once, but $10k-15k is a bit more than I’m willing to spend right now. So, we are doing what we can to improve the efficiency and comfort of our old girl by ourselves. First up is insulating the attic. Then we’ll start on other easy to do changes and fixes. Big things like new windows will have to wait.

After long discussions with others and reading a number of articles on research done into insulation methods I’ve decided to go with cellulose. Foam is best, but way expensive and must be installed by a pro. Fiberglass is the old stand by, but is now known to be only slightly better than no insulation. Fiberglass can be made much, much better with the installation of other materials, but it costs more money.

Lastly we have cellulose. It is environmentally friendly (made up primarily of recycled paper), bug free (treated with a fire retarding chemical, which is toxic to bugs) and from what I can tell cheaper than all other options. The downside is the potential for being a more flammable than fiberglass. There are plenty of opinions on both sides of the fence and my feeling is that if installed properly cellulose is safe. Install it incorrectly and it could cause a fire, but then again all the wood that a house is made of is pretty flammable too.

I’m shooting for a minimum of an R-49, which is the current standard for our area. That’ 15 inches of cellulose. Since I’m installing over fiberglass I may not hit that number with only 15 inches. I made need to add more, but it all depends on how high the soffitt thingies (can’t think of their name at the moment) extend. The higher they go the more insulation I can add. Ideally I’d like to get R-60, but that’ll take a bit of work and quite a bit of insulation.

Lastly is replacing the well pump. The one we have has had a good life and needs to be replaced. It whines loudly when running and no amount of oiling seems to do the trick. The bearings are going so a replacement is in order. With everything else I have on my plate I think this one will be last. It’ll be my first big plumbing project and I’m hoping that I don’t screw it up. I want to take my time and get it done properly. If I can’t get it done right or if I screw it up I’ll be the first one to call for help though.

That’s about it for this year though. Plenty of big and costly projects on the plate and I think it is enough for this year. Anything after these are likely to be no more complicated than changing a door knob.

Other than installing the storm door on Saturday I did get a chance to start working on a long running project again. I finally got a coat of paint on the basement wall. Once that was up I got a chance to install the electric switch for the lights and get all my nice new lights working. They’ve been installed for many months, but haven’t done anything. It all hinged on painting. Almost there. Just have to finish the back wall and the doors.

It feels good. One day we’ll finally reach maintenance mode. We’re going to be in replacing mode and making it ours mode for years to come, but in the end I think we’ll have the house we are longing for.