Way deep in insulation

Me, in a state of dusty exhausted misery

Nance getting in on the action gluing the Insulweb on the first floor

Apparently the newspaper is pulverized before becoming cellulose to the point that you aren't supposed to find individual letters, but Joe found this plus a couple of other semi-discernible bits of type. I love that our house is going to be kept warm by newspapers

Before we started blowing-in on the first floor

We've been working really hard on the insulation process. At first it seemed easy, just blowing in tons of cellulose and filling up all the wall and roof space, but then it got much harder when I went back to do the second pass where we bring the cellulose up to the optimal 3.5 lbs. per cubic foot density. This requires reaming the 2" aluminum supply tube into the same nebulous mass again and again and again until you feel like you can't do it any more and then doing it a little more on the chance you missed something.

This is all done at really awkward angles either above your head or at your feet up in the rafters with dust everywhere, an inadequate dust mask over your mouth and a plastic face shield on to keep cellulose from blasting into your eyes when you pull the insertion tube out of the ceiling for the millionth time. Blech! I'm not really for complaining, but this was one job where I just felt like it was an act of will to keep going and do it as well as I could.

The second floor is basically complete, and that was the worst of it. We are in the middle of insulating the first floor and there is much less volume to fill, so its going much quicker, plus its easy to do this work when you just need to stand next to a wall--unlike the complicated mess upstairs! We'll have the first pass on the first floor done tomorrow.