South Wall Almost Done

This past Saturday, it was the time to do the vapour barrier and drywall on the south wall.  We got off to a slow start on Saturday (as we usually do!). I did a long run on the treadmill and Rob got his haircut and found a part for my car. You see, it was minus 5000 degrees here last week, but a warming trend to minus 20 was in sight, so that's when everyone rushes out to wash the grime from the last snow melt phase so when you brush past your car, you don't get covered in dirt.  So I waited in line for 15 minutes--which isn't bad, went through the giant fog of the car wash, and came out.  Well, instantly any left over water froze, but I was heading home to a warm garage, so that's okay.  However, the fan on the heater started spluttering--it spluttered at levels 1 and 2, but was fine at 3 and 4.  So I kept it on high til I got home and then 1 and 2 just didn't work any more.  Not good, but at least I have heat.  So Rob gets home and goggles the symptoms and finds a three minute YouTube video, then googles the part, and it's in stock here in town--a $30 fix by him instead of a $100 fix by the dealership.  So easy to fix, he tells me, that even I could do it...

Oh, but back to drywall.  So we do the poly, then the black goop sealant at the bottom, and get a few boards up, and then it's time to go for dinner.  On Sunday, fix the car, put some more boards up, and then Rob discovers he needs some sort of electrical outlet box.  So off he goes to Home Depot.  So by the time he gets back and we finish, we only had time to get six boards up in total.  Not bad.

Oh, so close to being done!

One wall down--three to go!

This weekend was poly and drywall time.  But really, how can one top the mega fun of last weekend!?

So on Saturday, we went for coffee and breakfast at our favourite place, then ran some errands, then Rob did some electrical wiring of lights and I did three hours of snow and ice chipping, as it was plus six here.  Then we moved into the garage and moved wood, lawn mowers, and tires out of the way.  We unrolled the poly (vapour barrier), measured, and cut.  Then Rob stapled the top and middle.  While Rob stapled, I took a quick power nap of five minutes on a bundle of insulation--tired from my 12k run, three hours of chipping, and an hour of sizing and cutting. Then time to run to the opening of Wintershines, our annual winter festival, organized by our friends Kim and Shad.  This year, they acquired an inflatable igloo--with room inside for 100 people and a stage.  Way cool!

Sunday rolls around and we have coffee and read the newspaper.  Headed out around 10:00. Rob taped  and tarred the joints and I cut a piece of poly to go along the bottom gap. We started hanging sheets of drywall--one after another.  Went pretty well.  Nine sheets of drywall in eight hours. Twelve foot sheets cut to fit.  Plus cut outs around the four plug ins.  Not bad! Feels warmer and quieter already! And the wall looks so much bigger now as one giant white mass.

The next three walls will be a tad trickier, as the west wall has a door, switch panels, and a window.  The south wall has the electrical panel. The east wall has the garage door in  the middle.

Rob estimates 7-10 more weekends to finish everything.  What???????

 

 

 

Fibre-rama--Fun, Fibre, and Frenzy

This was a huge fibre weekend.  We kicked it off my attending a fibre art show opening, with fibre works from artists depicting the prairies.  My lovely sister-in-law Elizabeth had two pieces in the exhibit.  Amazing works with wool, fabric, thread.  Then from Fibre Friday night, we passed into Fibre Insulation Saturday. 


We picked up the attic insulation blower on Saturday morning (we had tried to blow the insulation over the xmas holidays, and picked up the blower, brought it home, and spent an hour trying to get it to work. It was broken.  So we took it back, and postponed the work for another day.  Which wasn't such a bad thing, as it was 30 below outside, and probably about the same in the attic where Rob would be working). But this Saturday, it was only minus 3--perfect.


We got the machine put together, Rob went up in to the attic with the hose, and off we went.  It took me awhile to get the hang of the blower.  I cut the fibreglass insulation bags open (when you cut the bags, the contents are under so much pressure, that they explode open like the Pilsbury dough crescent rolls tube.  They even formed a neat looking arch like an igloo--see pix below).  I dumped in the contents--expecting the hopper to suck the fibre in.  It doesn't do that.  So then I tried placing clumps in, but you really have to push the fibre down--but avoid the blades!  The blades grind the clumps of fibre into fluffy snow pieces.  The first bag took half an hour.  I was rushing to feed the hopper, grab handfuls of fibre, keep it off the floor, make sure there was a continuous flow of fibre threw the hose to Rob--I was run off my feet.  Yikes.  Have to pick up the pace as we have 20 bags to go through and at this rate, it will take all weekend!  The second bag took 20 minutes.  And finally I got into a rhythm and had a sterling pace of 13 minutes per bag.  Rob would bang on the rafters if he needed me to stop the blower. I in turn would turn off the blower to indicate when I had finished a bag, as Rob had to gauge the placement of each bag quantity between all the rafters, to ensure even coverage all around. I thought the flow of fibre would come out like a stream of water from a fire hose, but Rob said it wasn't that fast or exciting.  Darn. We got going and got 15 bags done in 5 1/2 hours and then stopped to take Rob out for birthday dinner.  We had to rush to get cleaned up--covered in fibre clumps and fibre snow.


Fibre Sunday rolls around, and we finish up blowing the last five bags, then tweaking the lofts of fibre, then clean up. The machine dropped clumps of fibre around it and Rob would have fibre flakes fall from the ceiling--like it was snowing.  Three hours later we were dropping the machine back off at Rona.


So that was a big chore out of the way.  Next week, we get to poly and drywall the walls--then the garage will be super air tight and warm.  The fun of Monster Garage just never ends!

Drywall Cometh

Today was drywall delivery day.  Rob had ordered all the garage wall drywall and since we are home on holidays, we can await its arrival.  Again, like last time , they said they would call before they arrived but I knew they wouldn't (like last time). So we (me) were up at 7:00 in case they came at 8:00.  I even hopped into my ski pants at 8:00 so I'd be ready.  The truck rolled up at 9:30, so at least it was light outside (and warmer than yesterday--yesterday was minus 30 with who knows how much wind chill; today was a balmy minus 24).

It was our buddy Gavin from the last delivery that came.  He was a great guy.  He drove the 25 drywall sheets over to the garage from across the street (with Rob ready to stop traffic, but they stopped on their own), and somehow he and Rob got them onto a pallet and then pallet-jacked it into position at the front of the garage (as these sheets will be living with us for awhile before getting installed, we want them out of the parking zone).  Then they had to find some other pallets and wood to put under the two ends so they didn't droop.  I missed all this, as I was guarding Rob's running car (his car is a tad fussy, so has to be warmed up before being turned off and he didn't have a spare key, so left it unlocked and running on the street).

And as you can see in the last three photos below, we can park all cars in the garage with the drywall, and Rob has about six inches at the front of the pile and six inches from the door to park!  Just made it.

Let There Be Light!

(this post was for December 8, but I haven't had time to post it).

Yes, it's a miracle!  The lights are on and somebody is home!  Rob worked very hard to get most of the outside electrical work done, during the mild weather we were having.  Of course, as you can see in one of the photos, he had to dig out the snow from the back of the truck in order to stand on it to install the lights... oh well.

Even the inside of the garage is brighter than the sun.  Lots and lots and lots of lights.  Sure helps having them on when we are doing work--instead of dragging the one work light around.

Next step:  blowing the attic insulation!

Getting Toasty Now

Today we started opening the bundles of batts of insulation and tucking them between the studs on the walls.  It went pretty easy!  I'd say, the easiest of all the tasks so far.  We went through three bundles (each bundle has 16 batts inside, which conveniently fit perfectly inside the spacing of the suds--just like Rob planned!)) and then called it a day.  The remaining openings are tricky ones....either they have electrical plus ins or lights which Rob has to wire in before the insulation goes in. (we took the day off on Sunday, as Monday is my birthday and Rob threw a surprise dinner party for me on Saturday night...so taking a day off from Monster Garage is a birthday present to me from me!; and it's minus 31 below here, so even though the garage is toasty, it's not THAT toasty.)

We Have a Ceiling!

Yes, it's true!  We finally got the ceiling drywall all up.  We have an enclosed ceiling now.  And with the heater running, it stays a toasty 10 degrees Celsius. We worked about 8 hours on Saturday and on Sunday, finishing at 7 p.m. on Sunday--after two hours in the morning of shovelling the 10-15 cm of snow we got on Saturday.  Rob cranked out the new snowblower--nifty.
We also installed a hatch to the ceiling--a little trap door in reverse.  And earlier in the week, I had cleared up the work bench to become a work bench again, not a clutter pile. And we squeezed in a visit on Saturday night with Kim to Winston's Pub to drink Rebellion Brewing's first keg release in Saskatoon (our friend Jamie is head brewmaster and part owner of it).  Way cool! (I was the DD, and we plowed forth in the raging snow storm for this magic elixir). So all in all, a pretty eventful weekend.