Yesterday I flew home for my last trip to Maine before baby bee arrives. I'm getting together with a few of my girlfriends and my mom's friends today for my baby shower; I can't wait to see everyone and I'm super glad to
not be at our little beehive this weekend.
This is the shot I took of S just before I left yesterday as he ascended to the attic, the last great storage frontier:
And while I didn't get a picture of the floor, you can understand when I say I'm really glad I'm not there for this "during" since he'd only just begun and there was cellulose insulation raining down from the attic already.
While I'm away, S is taking our little attic access hatch that's only accessible by ladder, which is inconveniently stored outside in the shed, enlarging it to nearly double its size and installing these beauties:
The reviews say that the ladder installs in just a couple hours, but those people clearly didn't have to move a ceiling light fixture, cut an opening, re-distribute joist loads, relocate and rewire the hall light, etc. S expects that they'll install in just a couple days. I just hope they, the light fixture and whatever painting and patching is required installs before I return home; I'm in no shape to be standing on a ladder painting a ceiling right now.
Cross your fingers that this one turns out as well as all our other DIY projects. With cooler weather finally approaching we really don't want our first giant fail to come in the form of a giant hole leading to the attic!
How much insulation do you have up there? Your insulation should be much higher than the truss bottoms so how are you going to store stuff up there? The minimum national energy code says you should have an R-38 which is 15" of blown in cellulose insulation. Having any less than that even in just one area and you'll be wasting a lot of energy.
ReplyDeleteNot to worry, we have 24"+ of insulation and we're building up the joists to support a couple of pieces of plywood flooring on top of the insulation. In the same homes around us people convert this area to actual living space so there is a lot of headroom and tons of space for our plan of just storing plastic totes. I'm the queen of conservation, we wouldn't sacrifice energy savings for a little bit of storage!
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