Going through the same feelings. We are at 50%- added a carport, front porch, deck with hot tub, art studio, new windows and doors, hardwood floors, slate tile, wood stairs +. We still have more to go (the kitchen is a biggie)and I just want everyone to GO AWAY. We are exhausted by the work we are doing and the decisions we have to make, the mess and having people here all the time.

I keep thinking that this time next year I can make my jam, draw and paint, and do just what I want in my pleasing, remodeled home. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Good luck to you, it's nice to know there are others out there doing this too.

hillybelle, I love your reply--misery surely does love company right now. I so completely understand the "GO AWAY" instinct, although now that the trades are gone and it's up to us to finish it, I wish they were back...

we have been working on our kitchen for three months!

My inspiration are the 'before' pictures and seeing how far we have come! WE take daily pictures of the kitchen and compare the difference.

We are also planning all the dinner parties that will come when the kitchen is finished :)

Flyleft...we've been working on our total home renovation for 8 months now, having to GC it ourselves. Although we are not doing most of the work except interior painting, the stress of the whole this is really getting to us this week. Probably only 3 more weeks to go...counters are installed next week, carpet as well, trim is being stained and sealed, and the exterior is being painted. Living in the basement with no toilet or shower or kitchen for 7 months, and we spent 2 years planning and buying for the renovation.

You'd think the excitement of seeing it finally all come together would be fun, but we've also kind of hit a wall as well...very frustrating...I know exactly what you're all feeling! We're also snapping and bickering with each other about the stupidest little things. It's like with the end in sight, I just can't take it anymore...I want my house and working kitchen back, LOL.

Flyleft, it's month ten for us. Just yesterday I was thinking it's been almost a year since we left Cairo, demo'ed the house in October.

You know, on the one hand you look and you just cannot believe how MUCH you have actually gotten done. But then after about five seconds of euphoria, you realize that crap, you still have to sand the trim, prime the trim, paint the trim, heck, finish installing the trim! The bathroom tile, the last remaining window, painting the walls, the little this, the little that. WILL the Miele DW work??! :) It's driving me bonkers and the other day I actually was feeling physically depressed by the whole thing. Ugh. I needed to get away.

But instead, I took a couple of days off work and really focused on working on the house full time (and watching reruns of Room Service and Breathing Room) for just a couple of days and feeling like I"m getting a little ahead. That helped alot. Then we had the "change of plan" with the master shower floor (long story short I found out that the floor tile I selected was FIVE TIMES more expensive than the other field tiles, so now we're doing something entirely different on the floor and even more beautiful for less than half the price).

I'm feeling better now, but I'm tellin ya, it's only a matter of time before I reach my third, fourth, fifth? limit again. It ebbs and flows.

Ivette

I know how you are feeling! We bought a home 2 1/2 years ago and we still aren't living in it yet! My husband insists we complete the remodeling before we move in or it will never get done. I can see his logic now. Between working full-time, attending college part time and helping run his business, I am one worn out lady. Then in my "spare time", I get to help with the painting, flooring, roofing, etc!

But, I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We are starting to wrap things up and should be able to move in the next month or so.

I know it gets tiring sometimes, but you have to go sit in a semi-finished room and fantasize about what it will be like when you're done. That always gives me a much needed boost.

Wow! Only months for most of you? I'm jealous.

My only suggestion is to set long and short term goals. For instance, we have a 5 year plan as well as a this month one. You must take time to enjoy as well as to work. Appreciate small accomplishments. This weekend ALL the windows on the front of my house will have been restored. Only six more to go on the rest of the house. (It has taken 4 years to do 23 windows.) That is on the "next year" list. As the weather gets too cold to work outside I will repair plaster and repaint the two front rooms. That is all for this year. If I get any window treatments sewn, it will be a bonus.

But, you know I live in another century and that may make things easier! In our neighborhood we think in terms of "century" repairs and restorations. Let yourself off the hook and look at the half full glass.

DH and I totally gutted and remodeled a half-bath into a full bath last summer into fall; we did ALL the work ourselves and it took 4 months. It was a little extra challenging since the floor was extremely un-level and we had to get that taken care of first-- I swear, not even being able to comfortably WALK around in a room (because there IS no floor, only joists) makes things SO much more challenging!!

We were also in the same boat, with both of us working full-time weekdays. We powered through and DID work many nights after work, often until 10 or 11 PM, only taking enough time to eat a quick dinner... It is truly astounding, how time-consuming these jobs can be.

The only way I was able to mentally get through it was to look only at the short-range goals, as in, what am I going to accomplish this week-- let's plan to get all the insulation in, or get one wall of drywall up, etc., etc. If I stopped to think, "my god, we have SOO much more that needs to be done," I would get overwhelmed and frustrated. But with having little goals, and then accomplishing them, it was such a nice sense of satisfaction-- "wow, we actually have LIGHTS in here with a SWITCH!!" heeheehee

I'll say this much, though-- that bathroom was our very first remodel project, and in terms of difficulty, it's about as bad as it can get (after a kitchen of course). The end result was marvelous and I am taken over with satisfaction every time I go in there, but the PROCESS was so unbelievably stressful that I am now spooked about starting ANY remodel-- even simple painting projects. Is there a home-remodeling equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder? because I think I have it!! :)

A long time ago I learned I had many talents but taping and bedding was not one of them. A couple of experienced drywall guys can have your whole house done in a couple of days. It's a bargain!

pharoah, I should have taken before pics. Maybe I'll take some pics this weekend at least. My goal this weekend is to put better insulation under the subfloor. Yes, I'm spending the weekend under the house, mostly on my back on the *ICK* crawlspace ground. Me, with fibromyalgia. I've got it easy, because my DH will be working with his arms above his head all day, cutting drywall for the ceiling. But who can appreciate a before and after pic of subfloor insulation?...*sigh* maybe remodelers LOL

bruno you had to remind me about trim? ARGH I've been in denial about that whole aspect...I can't find strandwoven bamboo trim to save my life unless I order 1K' of it or something like that. I'm thinking I'm going to have to have the trim just be very simple painted wood, the same color as the rooms but in a higher gloss. I was hoping to find the strandwoven so I wouldn't have to paint :( And because I'm so darn picky, I have learned how to take down the gloss on the bullnose of the tile we're using as base in the bathroom. I am to find 80 and 150 of some kind of material that works on porcelain and resand all the edges. Sure. That will come either before or after I *hand paint* all the uneven, irregular groutlines in our pebble-tile shower so that the groutcolor matches the wall grout (they're both the same name, just different formulations, so of course they came out completely different and I get to handpaint every single little curvy inch)

Ivette, yes, physically depressed. Like "if I have to make one more decision or realize I have one more job to take on, I am going to CRACK into 50 little pieces"...But cool about the shower floor--can you share details? I do love tile choices. And you remind me I haven't watched my necessary HGTV, which always gets me motivated, you're right...sorry to hear you're doing the trim all yourself too. Are you going to tile the floor? I am tiling the floor in the bathroom and the laundry room, but left the shower and tub surround to a professional. A splurge that turned out to be *almost* carefree, until I realized about the grout...

corgilvr, your house is so beautiful -- you can live in it, too, while all those processes are happening. I'd love to see any window treatments you sew--you have my admiration for that-I was going to take that on but then threw up my hands and decided to buy them. It's so different to look through the entire west half of your house and see only studs... Although you just made me realize that I live in a different century, too--the latter half of the last century...sounds so much more refined that way :)

blondmom, you win, WOW. 2.5 years and not living in it at all. Your DH is a bit correct, I think...on another forum I saw the line "Done and livable are not the same thing" and thought I should run right out and have that silkscreened onto some pillows or written in beautiful italics above our entry...

cnvh, may I ask how you got the floor level? I am really sweating over that already and I'm not even to that stage yet. I'm going to be thinsetting durock over our subfloor planks (very strong already) but the planks are old and I see in the only two sheets I've done about 1/8" that's going to need to be finessed with thinset when I place the heating mats down and then the tile. ANY tips would be most appreciated. I think I have that same PRSD you've got already...

Texasredhead, you read my mind, but our budget just won't permit it for the number of rooms we need it done for (and ceilings--argh I'm hanging my head in my hands). Although I'm thinking maybe I can get someone to come in and do the basic tape and mud, if we hang the drywall ourselves...maybe that would be a compromise...and then I could do the finish texturing (I'm going to try for smooth walls)...I wonder if anyone would go for that? I wish I could find someone who would do that and be good/trustworthy at it...it took me literally months to find a decent electrician, plumber, and tilesetter, dredging through the mucky bottom of our city's trades population...somehow I found some pearls. I'm going to at least do the research on the drywall finishing possibility. Then I'll give up and whine and do it myself.

All the while not boring my poor daughter to death. She's *just* a bit too young to really help on the delicate phases--she helped in demo, which she loved, but this part is too much for her. I've already called in many babysitting/playdate favors.

But you know, just reading your all's replies helps me feel somehow reinvigorated...

Off to get into my "under house" wear...

Well, our floor leveling required way more than just some thinset... the bathroom dimensions are roughly 5'x16', and the floor dropped almost 4 inches across the 5' span! (The room was originally a porch with the floor sloped away from the house; when they converted it to a half-bath, they never bothered to level the floor.)

So we ripped up all the original flooring (2 layers of carpet, 2 layers of linoleum, a layer of tin-- which was EXTREMELY hard to remove-- and the original subfloor), then we built "ladders" using 2x6's to nail in between the existing floor joists, basically making new "joists" level with the highest point on the floor. Then we nailed down the thickest plywood we could buy, filled in the cracks with thinset, and laid down new vinyl flooring.

The whole bathroom was a nightmare from beginning to end-- we kept encountering roadblocks that we never saw coming. But alas, it's finished, and eventually yours will be too, I promise!

WOW, cnvh. If there were a kowtowing emoticon, I'd use it right now. Your house sounds like some we looked at in West Philadelphia--literally the whole back half of the house would be falling off.

OH MY GOSH--I see you're in PA! We were looking in Univ. City, in all those old tiny homes...but a lot of the housing stock out there is "of a certain age" or beyond :)

Did you insulate in between the joists? If so, with what? No cold toes for me even if it means I live under the house for the next few days...

Well fottunately no part of our house is "falling off"-- since the room was originally a 2nd story porch open to the elements, I'm sure it was SUPPOSED to slope away from the house to keep rainwater from laying against the building. But a BATHROOM with a slanted floor?? Umm, that does not work.

We did insulate between the joists, using the regular pink roll-insulation kind (you know, the itchy stuff). The sheet vinyl we used is also really thick stuff (I think it was called Naturcor), so that helps too... even in the dead of winter, the floor isn't that cold.

Best of luck to you in finding a home in Philly. We live in Central PA, so I really don't know much about Philly real estate, but I spent a year there at college (Temple University), I still have some friends who live there and it's one of my favorite places to visit.

We're not DIYers but I am dragging this week and to add to this it has been the worst week I've experienced in ANY remodel and we've done several remodels. I've been crying since Thursday, not just a few tears either.

Just to detail ONE thing that happened; My Dad passed away 3 years ago and I received some money after his death. I wanted to buy something that I could put on our property that had some memories for me of my Dad. I decided to buy a free standing wooden bench swing, it was not much maybe $225. When I was a little girl my Dad and I would sit on a similar one at the park across the street from my Grama's house. I even took care with the stain and finish as I wanted it as I remembered. The swing is a safe distance away from the remodel and I really did not think it would be in the way or that someone would damage it. But Wednesday after everyone had left for the day, I made myself a Latte and walked out to sit on my Swing and someone had laid grease guns on it and of course they dripped grease all over the seat. I don't know how long the grease guns had been there as it has been a while since I walked over near the swing. It just makes me sick that someone would do this to my memories. I pretty much know who did it and their excuse will be they did not realize the sentimental value. But the bottom line is they knew it was my property and it should have been respected regardless of the memories.

BTW, I confiscated the grease guns and the other tools left on the swing. And if they want them back, they have to fess up, KMA, and maybe, just maybe I will consider selling the tools back to him!

msaferstein: Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. How inconsiderate!!!! I really hope you can sand and restain that swing to its original beauty. I have to admit, as I read your post I thought "oh no, she found it in splinters." So it COULD be worse, I guess. I lost my mother almost nine years ago, so I know, I know.....

flyleft: Well!!! We have these beautiful Waterworks Architectonics tile in the Mykonos glaze for our master bath shower. They're beautiful, hand made. We were going to go with the Crackle Muslin (and seal them bigtime since this is a steam shower) but accidentally got a sample of these and just fell in love. Anyway, ordered 6x6, 4x4, 3x6, and several trim pieces. No problem, approximately $22/sq ft. plus the expected gouge for the trim pieces. But THEN, the 2x2 we chose for the shower floor (more grout lines, safer, you know)...are you sitting down?? $101/sq ft!!!! I wrote to our Waterworks chick and said "that's one heck of a typo!" No, it's not a typo. Hand made, smaller, more labor. Oy. "That's nice" I said. "Plan B."

So, I think to myself: "You know, that Cararra marble mini brick mosaic floor we put in the powder room was only $41/sq ft. Machine made, (DO I CARE???!). What if we did that on the shower floor instead? Mind turns. Barbara at Waterworks recommends Calacatta because it's whiter. Sends a sample. OMG, it is TO DIE next to our white ceramic tile in the rest of the shower and it's $44/sq ft. Still not cheap, but less than half the price of the 2x2 ceramic. So, suddenly, we have a floor that is even MORE beautiful, for less money. A very, VERY happy accident. We're just delighted, and seriously it like gave me such a boost that I lost all depression about the remodel (for now). ;)

Ivette

cnvh, we aren't in Philly anymore--that was back in '96, before the boom. I understand that the slightly rundown houses we were looking at have *exploded* in price since then, and the neighborhood has upscaled itself significantly...we're out on the west coast now, actually...never would have expected it back when we were looking there (I was in grad school at Penn) but this east coast girl has found her new "forever home", as they say about pets :)

(((mrsafirstein))), I'm SO sorry to have heard that. I completely agree with your plan of action. The perp should have to hear what his slobbiness has caused. That's part of what upsets me so much about when contractors/trades come into our *homes*, our deepest havens, and disrespect them. Just unconscionable, IMO. They wouldn't take it if if it were their homes and family memories...

Cough Cough sputter...Ivette, *over* $100/sf??? have to see these. It's not every day that something can make $44/sf look like a bargain :)

Hey, you know what, our tiles are hand made and/or hand cut, every single edge--mostly by moi :). As I finished up de-edging our porcelain tiles today, I calculated that I saved us somewhere between $1800 and $3600 ($3600 if you go by what we would have been charged, actually) by edging them myself. Which is a significant portion of our budget for this whole project. I'm feeling quite useful today.

Although I'm also ACHING! OY, I had to take extra fibro meds just to get out of bed today after being under the house yesterday. I know I have so much more insulation to install, too...UGH...

mrsafirstein, please update with the outcome of your situation. I'll be thinking of you.

Thanks so much for the thoughts. Today is a bit better. We've been thought the remodeling before and I know to get stuff out of the way. I did think to move the swing but it is abt 50' from the house and I just did not think it was in danger at all. Our GC called on Friday and wanted to come over but I was in no condition to talk to anyone. DH and I discussed our situation over the weekend and our GC was here at 7:00 am today and DH had a long talk with him. We really do like our GC and this is not the first time we have worked with him. He could not have been more thoughtful and concerned and promised to inspect our property every day btw 3-4:00pm to make sure nothing will happen like this again. So I do feel better today. I feel badly for my DH, there was just nothing he could say to ease the situation. He did tell me tonight that I can get the 2nd WM, a Danby, that I wanted. He did not need to do that, but it was very sweet of him. And YES, I took him up on the offer!

I have to agree with the $100 per sf for tile...whooly cow!

Fly; Try Naprozen Sodium ie: Aleve, this stuff is my new wonder drug and it really is good stuff! First time I ever tried it is when I broke my finger abt 2 months ago, yep thinking about the darn toilets and slammed my own hand in the door and broke my index finger in 2 places and almost severed it at the first knuckle. ER Dr. prescribed Vicodin and Aleve. I never took the Vicodin, the Aleve was all I needed. You should also be taking Glucosamine and Condroitin which is very good for joints and tendons.

This might be asking for trouble but how do you de-edge tile?

msa,

I'm really glad to hear that your GC took this seriously. We had a GC once (nightmare, atty was ultimately involved) *scowl* and grab the bag out of our hands when we showed him a bag of *empty beer bottles* his men had left on our property...he wasn't scowling at them, he was scowling at *us* for bringing it up. He also routinely walked through our bushes (GGRRRR). I was a bit afraid you had one of those on your hands, but it sounds like you don't.

Wha'ts a Danby WM?

And re the meds: oh, I wish it were that simple. Fibromyalgia characteristically doesn't respond to naprosyn, and I've got a characteristic case. That finger break sounds horrible, but I'm glad the aleve worked for you. It works for me with --(we're just girls here, right?) menstrual pain (works the way nothing else ever has, even ibuprofen, because it's a better prostaglandin inhibitor), but what happened here was that the extreme exertion kicked in a fibro flare, when your joints and muscles just all rise up in protest (like having a bad flu) and only certain meds will help. And Sunday, they didn't help completely :(. I'm still kind of in that spot. It's very uncomfortable, and the project can't move forward until I subject myself to more of the same (my DH is too big to fit under the house in the ways necessary to get this #$(%*$ insulation up, and despite what our neighbors have suggested, we're not sending our daughter under the house to do it either :)) And G&C doesn't work for my joints, either. But I appreciate the concern and the thoughts behind the recommendations :)

Here's another reason for some suffering: I've gotten a recurrence of my beloved carpal tunnel in my grinder-holding-hand because of my somewhat anal de-edging project. I didn't like that the tiles, which look so much like limestone, had the factory edge so I would have to have wide groutlines, so what I did was borrow my tile guy's 4" angle grinder and literally grind every single factory edge off so that all the tiles look like cut stone, 90 degree angles. We got nice tight groutlines that way; it makes a world of difference to obsessive ol' me. But each tile was 18", so I did 6' of edge for *every single tile*, and I did 20 boxes of 6 tiles each...my fingers still vibrate on their own every so often...

The upside is that when people see the bathroom they uniformly have been "oohing" and "aahing", despite the fact that we used 3.10/sf tile (o.k., it was more expensive originally, but it was on closeout) and very carefully placed accent stones which were only $9/sf. So I rub my hand and smile :)

And lo and behold, my DH is thinking that he'd rather take the money we were going to spend on a new bedroom set for the bedroom and hire someone to do the drywall. I'm still on the fence about it...I want that bedroom set! :) But he's thinking it will take us a couple of months of weekends just to get that up and finished, because he needs to be there to do it, whereas if we get someone to do it, I can then zoom ahead with the flooring mostly on my own (it's tile except in the bedroom). I'm in the process of saying goodbye to my bedroom set dream and maybe feeling a bit less exhausted...

I can commisserate, Fly.

Years ago I decided to build my house. bought a chainsaw the day we closed on the lot, and started dropping trees that same afternoon.

I subbed out the excavation.
Subbed out the foundation and chimneys.
Subbed out to have someone install my oil tank and burner.
Subbed out the drywall. I'm a fool, but not that big of a fool.

Did everything else myself, while working fulltime and raising the family.

Tough to do, but it requires persistence, dedication, etc.

That was my intro to construction. When I started, I had a $30 circular saw and a $30 drill. I bought tools well after I needed them.

A good way to survive the process is to set goals. Short term and long term. 30-minute goals, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly. Set them as required.

It's satisfying and shows progress when you can check things off a list. It's often important, because you can possibly do something all day, prep work for example, and while you've put in a day's effort, you may not have made any jarring visible progress with the room.

Instead of having lists like "trinm out the bathroom" I'll instead have:
- design trim layout and reveal
- make measured drawings
- make cut list
- rough cut stock
- mill profiles on stock
- trim tub window
- trim bathroom door
- trim bath window

etc, etc.

I may not trim out the room in a day, but I'll have knocked the list in half in that same day. It's measureable progress, and it feels good.

It's a nice motivator of sorts, a pick-me-up when you need one.

I'm slow to accomplish as well, take my pool for example.

Three years ago I put in a swimming pool with a small 3' ribbon of hardscape around it.

Two years ago I poured the 1800 sqft slab for the pool patio. While that doesn't seem like much, the prep work was a killer, it took several weeks by itself.

Last year I built the fence around the pool. Again, small by itself, but it's about 360' of 6' tall square picket cedar fencing. I bought the cedar lumber rough cut from a sawmill up in Canada and finished it all here. Laborious, but it's a custom fence. Over 1000 6' long 2" square pickets pushed through the table saw four times to true up all four sides, then 4 cuts to make a pyramid shape on the top of each picket, and five cuts to make a truncated pyramis shape on the bottom.

Large projects like that get blurry. I'd set goals of doing 25 pickets at a time, then another 25, then...by the end of the day I might have done 300. If it got too tedious I'd transition to the fence rails just to break things up. Separate, but complimentary jobs.

Freshens the mind, but keeps the job on the timeline.

This year I'm finally getting around to putting stone veneer over the slab and building a somewhat large pergola (36' by 16') over a section of the patio. Ditra (yup, more money for Herr Schluter!) then the stone.

Again, it all takes time.

Ah, the joys of home ownership!

Stay true to the task at hand.
Trat your family well, have them do the same to you. Take an occassional family get-a-way, whether it be to the ice cream stand or to dinner.

But stay on track.

Goals are SO important in large projects like yours.

Best,

Mongo the TaskMaster

fly : I have to THANK YOU about the heads up on the iso foamboard insulation. I know about the blown in foam but not the board. You saved us as we are almost ready to have our sheetrocking done too and we will now be able to have this insulation installed instead of the old fiberglass stuff. I just wish we had known about it when the dummy who did our attic reno was with us. He didn't ask and since the 30R value insulation was too thick for our joists he used like 13 or something and now we have all this heat gain and heat loss and no way to fix it and energy bills literally thru the roof. GRRRR as you say. We are wondering now if when we have to have the roof replaced could they remove the decking and the insulation and then we could have the foam board or blown foam in there and replace the decking...do you know if that is possible ? I love reading your posts !! Caroline

"Danby WM" is a Danby Washing Machine. It is a compact model only 23 3/8" wide, front loader and has an internal water heater and will heat water to 200 degrees. I love being able to do a true hot water wash and the Danby is only abt $500 and has excellent feedback. The Danby will be a 2nd machine for my main laundry room and should fill the gap for hot wash loads.

I agree with Mongo and I itemize my TODO Lists and it helps to check things off with a large, red magic marker. So much satisfaction just striking off each task!

Fly; The de-edging job sounds like something I would do too. These small, tedious projects do make a world of difference though.

Fly, are you done taking the edge off hose tiles?

If not, try stacking several...say 20 or so...or an entire box...on edge, up tight next to one another. Then run the grinder along the edges of all 20 tiles at once.

Flip the stack, repeat until all four edges are taken down.

That might make things go faster, might prevent you from taking a bit more off one and a bit less off the next, and might minimize some of the repetitive motion stuff.

But I bet you're done with them now, right?

Always timely,

Mongo

Oh my gosh... 3 months?... Anything less than a year seems like such a dream to me. We are in our 4th year with another 2 years on the horizon unless we can really get the lead out. We were back into the swing of things a few months ago and then the DH blew out his ankle joint capsul and that slowed up stuff quite a bit. I have taken over doing quite a bit of the work but while homeschooling 5 kids it's rather slow. We are doing about 45% of our house and I would gnaw off my arm to be done..but that is not to be so we shall move forward no matter how slow with hope in our hearts and a song on our lips ....uh yeh..NOT... but we will be done some day. I just wish it were sooner than later!

Maddie, who is starting to think of subflooring as the floor of choice in here home!

Mongo! Great to see you! And great to read other folks' posts as well...

mongo, your line about various kinds of foolishness, combined with my achy muscles, has finally made me cave in and give up the bedroom set for the timely addressing of drywall (also initially spurred by texasredhead). I give up. We'll get the drywall done and we'll do the rest. DH is overjoyed :)

So much more to say--I'll reply in more depth tomorrow but we're going to sub out the drywall and it's *you all* who are to blame/to thank for it! :)

Thanks, I've been off the forums lately...lots of family travel...so not much posting. Leaving again tomorrow for a couple of days as well.

Drywall is certainly within the realm of DIY, my "foolish" comment was self-directed, as in "I'd be a fool to try to hang, tape, and mud my house, given its size and the height of the ceilings, especially since I wanted 5/8ths" thick rock throughout."

It probably would have taken me 6 months to do it instead of the 2 weeks that it took a group of French-Canadiens.

And I truly would have been miserable.

Plus, what a nice break for me. After months of hard labor, I was able to watch others do the heavy lifting. My reward! Still, I wasn't idle, that's when I started buildig the finish stairway for the front foyer.

Be no one's fool (except your own),

Mongo

Flyleft,

What was the name brand on your polyisocyanurate sheets ? We have a vaulted ceiling in our kitchen that is still open since we have been stumpped about what to do with it. The goofs who built it spaced the rafters much farther apart that usual and we have put braces between them but the widness has meant we have not found an insulation product that is wide enough.

Thanks!

Maddie

maddiemom,

If I can interject...

Dow just bought Celotex which limits the feild a bit, but Celotex's Tuff-R is what I normally use.

I use foil-faced polyiso, the foil acts as a radiant barrier which does wonders to prevent hot attics from radiating heat into the living space.

I install the 4' by 8' sheets to the bottom faces of the rafters using a couple of nails with button caps to prevent the nail from tearing through the polyiso.

I leave a 1/4" to 3/8" gap between adjacent sheets when installing them. I then peek into those gaps and use a sharpie to make a tick mark on the face of the polyiso, showing the location of the rafter behind the polyiso.

I then use canned foam to seal the gaps between the sheets. This gives you an air-tight barrier, tighter than you could get by simply butting the sheets together. Critical for moisture control.

I then run furring strips horizontally over the polyiso at 16" on-center. I use screws to screw through the furring strip, through the polyiso, and into the rafter behind the polyiso. the tick marks that I made earlier show me where to screw so I hit the rafters.

The drywall gets screwed to the furring strips just like normal.

Things to consider:
- I use 2" polyiso on ceilings. You can go thinner, but I woul;dn;t go thinner than 1".
- The polyiso itself will block radiant energy, so don;t be overly concerned with the required air space on the roof side of the polyiso.
- Try to minimize penetrations through the polyiso. Can lights, junction boxes, etc. Eliminate those you can, and for those that remain, seal those penetrations well.
- R value of polyiso is about 7 per inch. It's effective R-value is quite high, as it eliminates air infiltration and blocks radiant transfer as well.

When you hang the sheets of polyiso, they don't have to break over the rafters. Meaning then ends of the sheets don't have to land on a rafter. They can break in the middle of a rafter bay.

When you install the furring strips (which you can buy at box stores like HD or you can rip them from scraps of 3/4" plywood) they also do not have to break over a rafter, however, stagger their butts so they are different from the butt joints of the polyiso.

For what it's worth, I had FG batts between the rafters of my own house in CT. Radiant energy goes right through FG, and my attic was hot as heck in the summer.

When I finished my attic off, I did as described above, though I use 2" thick polyiso on the rafter faces and 1" on the gable end walls. I did this in July. the day I started, the temp at the peak of the attic was 127 degrees. The next day it was 77 degrees. All due to eliminating that radiant energy. THAT is the reason for hot attics.

The sun heats the roof, the roof turns into a huge radiant panel, radiating heat into the attic. the hot attic then heats the attic floor, which is the ceiling of your living space, and that energy is transferred into the living spaces of the house, increasing AC cooling loads, etc.

Dense-packed cellulose absorbs radiant energy, then it's up to the thickness of the cellulose to stop the energy migration of the energy through in the form of conduction. But again, radiant passes right through FG.

Hope this helps.

Radiantly,
Mnogo

Mongo: I have a couple questions OT about the polyiso. If it is 7 per inch why don't you need 5" thick to get 35 R for ceiling ? What am I missing ? Also if/when we need to reroof our house can the roofing guys also remove the decking and thus allow us to remove the poor insulation and replace with the polyiso ? Is this in the realm of huge costs or would we ultimately save on energy bills. As it is our upstairs is miserable in the hottest summer unless the a/c runs continuously. We are also losing tons of heat in the winter. Thanks in advance for any help, this is all new to us. Caroline

Uh...

what he said :) (Tuff-R is available at HD)

(I like the tip about the foam, mongo--I didn't know that would be tighter than butting them together with pressure from the sides)

trailrunner, glad to know it helped someone else. I discovered it by nosing around on the internet.

mrsa, I see--what an interesting machine! I will research it just to know more...and I like the itemized to-do lists, too. I'm realizing that my problem is really a medical one; I'm just not up to this physically for a lot of reasons. So the drywall is being done by others. I'm still going to suck it up and do the insulation (hopefully not sucking too much of that up :) -- even with the polyiso I wear a mask, because a lot gets loose when I cut it into small enough pieces to get into the crawl space) and I'm really looking forward to the tile and bedroom flooring. So we do what we can and must job out the rest. Not going to send myself into bedrest so I can say I did the drywall.

mongo, meant to add that it's SO nice to have you around when you check in. I always love your posts, but you know that :)

We're doing 5/8" in the laundry room and in the master bedroom (where one of the 5/8" will be going over firtex soundboard--that's the best I could come up with, of who would actually sell me anything, for insulating the darn pocket door), but 1/2" around the bathroom (it's internal to the master suite). And just so you know, when the first drywall guy came to bid (we like him a lot, even before he said this :)) he said that he wouldn't have to redo any of what we've done because my DH (it's him mostly--I just help hold) had done such a good job putting up what he'd put up (the ceilings). He said a lot of homeowners don't do drywall well, esp. ceilings. So just a moment of pride for my dear sweaty hardworking IT guy who also does drywall :) (and we've learned that none of his IT friends will help with drywall--they're just not physical enough...only his business analyst friends. So there's some armchair sociology)

Caroline,

per your request I replied via email.

Mongo

Mongoct,

Thanks for the thoughts... it gives me some good ideas about working with this stuff. I am going to the Evil Orange tonight to see if I can find some of this stuff... what kind of cost am I looking at? Not that it really matters since on a sunny say you could cook a turkey with the radient energy that comes down off the ceiling!

Maddie

correction: we're *not* doing the soundboard on the pocket door. We're just going to put 5/8" on there instead, on both sides, and figure out how to add a bit of depth to the door (get different casing?) to accomodate the depth on both sides.

Flyleft,

What I do is rip three 1/8th inch thick by 3/4" wide pieces off a piece of 3/4" stock. Three pieces two for the sides, one for the head.

Poplar if paint grade, species if stained.

I pin nail thses pieces to the edge of the door jamb, setting them back 1/4" or so from the inside face of the jamb.

The additional 1/8" thickness of these strips will make up for the extra thickness from the 5/8" drywall.

I then trim per usual, setting the trim casing back about 1/8" from the inside edges of those thin strips.

I do that to add one additiona shadow line, and a bit more visual detail to the trim.

Be thin and trim,
Mongo

maddiemom,

I'm not sure what the box stores charge, but I pay around $18 for 2" thick sheets, maybe $11 for 1".

Those prices go up and down a bit throughout the year.

Sheets are labeled TUFF-R or R-MAX depending on the manufacturer.

4' by 8' sheets, foil-faced (sometimes one face is black paper) with a creamy yellowish color to the insulation.

Mongo

mongo, you're such a dear :) I'll follow your instructions and feel calm about at least one part of this :)

And I wish I could get your prices on the Tuff-R...

The manufacturers were required to change the blowing agent for the foam a few years ago, prices started dancing back then and really haven't stopped.

I can shred a few sheets, box them up and FedEx them to you. All you'd have to do is reassemble the pieces.(g)

Just got back from a few days in Manhattan. Lordy I think I ate hands down the most well-prepared meat I've ever had. A little of this, a little of that.

I can't even list them all...multiple servers come around with nice chunks of different types of meat/pork/chicken on large skewers and slice of piece off to your stomach's content. Everything was delicious. And I'm picky when it comes to meat and salmon.

Zero complaints.

Oy.

Have to sleep it off...

Be well fed, Mongo

I felt the need to follow-up...

I buy in large quantities, several hundred sheets, thus the lower prices.

There are other RFBI besides polyiso, and they are most certainly less expensive. Polyiso is my first choice due to the higher R-value, the foil face, the ease of installation, as well as the benefits previously described...radiant, air, etc, etc...but you can get some of those same qualities with a less expensive foam board.

Mongo

Hey mongo,

O.K., several hundred sheets probably wouldn't fit in our garage...I fold :)

What was the restaurant you went to? Sounds Persian or Middle Eastern...? I used to know NY restaurants, but we left in '95 and that's an eternity in restaurant years...and speaking of chicken on skewers--I made a delicious shish taouk, with tzatziki all with herbs from our garden, for some fellow g'webbers last night -- it was delectable :) -- and then we had a dessert with mascarpone and blackberries picked fresh off their property...aaaaahhhhh :)

Mongo, just wanted to let you know that I've been lurking in this thread and have implemented your polyiso technique in a large 12x32 sunroom that we're finishing. It has a cathedral ceiling with 2x8 rafters---we put in one layer of 3 1/2" thick R-13 unfaced batts, then one of the same but faced. (I figured this must add up to R-26 but 7" batts were only R-19. Doesn't matter now because the work is finally done, i guess...)

Anyway, we put up 1.5" polyiso over that and I sealed all the gaps with foam sealant. We did put in two recessed lights and two ceiling fixture boxes---and now I read in another thread that you say to eliminate all of that stuff! oh well---I did seal them really well. I think.

I am not sure what to do with the joint where ceiling meets wall, though. Should I tape it? I couldn't find the Owens Corning pink construction tape anywhere so i got heat-resistant duct tape by 3M. The wall is brick with a studwall over it and the foam boards don't butt up against headers, just the faced batts. It seems like that's a potential spot for moist air to get into the ceiling.

spanky, how did you get the foam sealant to stay up if you were spraying it over your head? Whenever I spray the sealant (less expanding than the "big gaps" one -- which one did you use?) over my head it just falls out. We ended up using duct tape too...I'm not finished, though, so I might be able to use the spray if you can help me figure out how to make it stick...should I use the "big gaps" one even though it's not big gaps? Or how did you do it?

We had about four different types of foam sealant.

The DAP water-based stuff was the easiest to use overall because it didn't expand like it wanted to take over the world. But it does set up more slowly and it was the most likely to fall off the ceiling! I found that doing a little bit at a time helped. Big heavy wet globs don't stay put. Smaller ones do just because there's more surface tension, or something.

The other brand was the "Great stuff" or something like that---the 'big gap' sticks well, I think because you just spray the normal amount but then it expands a LOT. I think it skins over as it's expanding so it sticks way better. It seems to set up or dry a lot faster than the DAP stuff.

The one for windows & doors is about the same as the one for big gaps as far as sticking well and the rate of expansion.

The thing I don't like about the ones that expand a lot is that it's really hard to gauge how much to apply. I usually overdo it and then have to trim off the excess after it's set up. I use a serrated bread knife to saw it off at the ceiling surface and this is tricky and tiring. But i'd rather spray more than less and not have to worry that I left any little gaps.

...I would fill the gap in a zig-zag motion from one side to the other so that the foam bead would be clinging to both sides. It seemed to be better supported that way. That would be on gaps of 5/8" to 1" or so.

I also noticed that the foam had less gas in it as the can got close to empty. That stuff didn't stick as well. I think it might help to shake it every minute or two, also---though that sends little blops of foam flying, which is a pain.

Ah, thanks, spanky--great information. I'll give it another go. I tried small globs (small spaces not water-based -- although I wonder if maybe the small spaces one is made not to be as sticky because it doesn't have to be?) but I'll try with a big gaps one, going side to side. Really appreciate your thoughts.

p.s. you inspired me with that JLL fabric find you posted (somewhere-now I can't find the post anymore!) -- I went to eBay and found some fabric sellers and have some nice samples coming for a headboard for our Master Bedroom :)

Oh, I thought of something else, though maybe you figured this out, too---hold the can with one hand and guide the plastic tube thingy with the other, especially in tight gaps. I got tired of the plastic tube popping loose and going flying while I was up on the ladder. The DAP ones come off really easily. And they're also not rigid enough to poke into gaps without bending and boinging stray blops of foam where you don't want it.

That stuff is so messy.

Ok--JLL fabric?? I'm not sure what that stands for! Did I really say that?