Scratchy Weekend

FAR Manor has an attached two-car garage, and a detached three-car garage. With all that garage space, we are able to park: one minivan and two motorcycles.

How the fiber hath fallen…

To add to the “fun,” the detached garage (or “Carriage House” in FAR Future) has insulation in the ceiling… or rather, had. It pretty much all fell down over the last year or so. With all the junk in there, including stuff that Jam asked us to store and has pretty much forgotten about, there hasn't been room to maneuver ladders around as needed to put it back up.

But… if I have to replace my Civic soon, I’ll want some garage space. And so, once more unto the breach! The detached garage has a single-car door, and a two-car door. The Boy has his band stuff in the two-car section, so I figured it would be easier to clear the other side. I removed: a riding lawn mower, The Boy’s 1970-vintage dirt bike, a chipper-shredder, a go-kart, a Mantis tiller, boxes, junk, more junk, and more junk. We about filled a pickup truck (red, not white) with trash… including some of the un-repairable insulation.

Lifting up the fallen…

With the battlefield mostly clear, I got to work. Up the stepladder to tack up the insulation near the wall and the middle, then up the ladder to tack it at the peak. Some of the paper had gone bad, and I had these little metal rods to hold them up… until I ran out.

But, up in the attic/crawlspace (which was intolerably hot until I put a small fan up there to circulate the air), is a veritable lumber yard of stuff left by the previous owners and their own projects. The most helpful thing I found was long strips of wood, about 2" wide, and I tacked them up about halfway to support the insulation. This helped a lot, and I managed to finish the back half before supper. I tacked up another long strip on the front half to get a head start on that.

Let's hope it stays now.

So… this afternoon, after a couple false starts, I was off and running. I was hoping that I could tack up the bottom half all the way across, then climb into the crawlspace to finish the top half, but it didn’t quite work out that way.

But, with much upping and downing on the ladders, and another strip near the top of the front half to hold up some of the rattier insulation, I managed to get it done.

And now, it’s time to take my itchy self to bed. I get to rest at the office all week!