it would be best to delay the insulation install and invest time in air sealing any openings between the attic and living space. an easy way to determine where you need to air seal is to go into the attic and look for light from living space below. while in the attic you should also check around hvac supply boxes into the house. often when supply box is installed the screws from the supply register attached to the living space side of the supply will raise the supply box off the attic flooring. this leakage will cause supply grills to condensate because of hot and cold air meeting on a metal surface, and it also allows insulation particles to enter the living space. this should be mastic sealed, then check out the ducts where they take off from the plenum..this should be mastic sealed..plenum connections to mechanicals and coil or air handler to heating system should be mastic sealed., mastics..not duct tape look at bath vents..sheetrock cut is usually larger than housing for bath vent fan..I use mastic tape to seal these areaa. Make sure that back draft damper on bath fan is installed correctly. flap should close off damper when fan is not in use. use mastic tape to attach back draft damper..metal dryer venting to back draft damper and vented as per code. thermal bypasses like fireplace inserts are often left open from the attic you should not be able to look down and see fire box. the goal is to create an air barrier so that air doesn't move from attic to living space through the insulation. if air is moving thru the insulation it reduces the r-value. it also allows attic air and insulation particles to circulate through out the house. once the air barrier is complete then you add the thermal barrier. make sure that under any mechanicals is insulated, also under mechanical service areas and walkway to these mechanicals. if you used ICAT lights for recessed lights it is only the gap between the housing of the recessed light and the sheetrock that needs to be sealed. these cans are insulation contact air tight. if your cans are IC only..the holes in the housing into the attic will have holes in them unlike ICAT..then you need to address with air tight inserts and seal sheetrock cut. one IC only recessed light equals one sq ft of uninsulated attic. (LA DNR) that is HUGE. to retrofit the lights to air tight is expensive we have used ice chests in some homes. the ice chest has to have 4" clearance on all sides and top. it is cut to fit tightly to sheetrock and caulked in place...time consuming. the recessed lights and other thermal bypasses are often over looked. these have a huge impact on the performance of the insulation and the house. saving upfront costs longterm..your builder builds and moves on, leaving high utility bills and poor comfort and iaq for you to deal with. before insulating seal these areas..you will never have as easy of an access to these areas as now.. remember...air barrier first.. thermal barrier after air barrier. there is plenty of info for this at buildingscience.com and southface institute has an excellent air sealing pdf. in my personal experience with cellulose it creates a fine 'dust' of borates and newspaper..your air barrier should be as perfect as you can get it. and invest in 4" pleated media filters for your hvac system best of luck

The best part of this project completion has been DH's reaction. The basement furnishings are more transitional / modern feeling and more masculine. He came into the area and sat down on a sofa, looked around and said, "This is REALLY nice." He looked carefully at everything, sat in all the chairs and sofas and claimed a sofa for his own. From a man of few words, this was high praise! After the final botanical charts and pieces of majolica are up I am finished with this space in terms of accessories, we are going to take the light off the fan (wasn't supposed to be there) and finish up the bathroom, but essentially the living spaces are complete. That is a great feeling, to know there's nothing more to shop for, especially since my initial thought was that the charts would be placeholders for "real" art (paintings). I am so glad we made the decision to do the whole space with those prints and I don't need to to change any of it in the future unless I just want to.

What started out, after 6 responses, as a tie has become a landslide in favor of the 2 over 2, with lots of good advice on spacing and placement. Thanks. Without adressing each individual response, here's a little more information. The set of 4 prints - 2 butterfly and 2 dragonfly - is from Ballard Designs, but I purchased them from the consignment shop where I am a volunteer. Here's a picture from Ballard's. I'd love to have a chair rail in the DR, but it's part of an L-shaped LR/DR with one long wall from the LR to the DR and no place to stop it. I have a question about spacing the prints in the 2 over 2 arrangement. The spacing between the prints should be the same in both directions, right? It's not a problem to add to the width of the overall arrangement, but the height is pretty tight. And...would you arrange them as the picture from Ballard's shows? Now, I just need to convince DH that 2 over 2 is the way to go. It's only a few holes in the wall anyway, right?

Slight correction to what I mentioned above. Photobucket has a preset resizing feature if you load photos there. If you have the photo selected, hold your mouse over the top of the picture & options will appear above. It's the third one in "resize". If you're looking at a bunch of photos in your the album you'll need to go under the edit feature.