We're in the pink (and white)

For the first time in many months, there was a noticeable difference when we walked into the house today.  It was absolutely, eerily quiet.  Not that it's ever very loud, but everything was muffled and there was no echo whatsoever.  Why?  Because we are now insulated!

Master Bedroom

All of the exterior walls have blown in fiberglass (in white) in addition to rigid foam on the exterior.  The fiberglass gives us an R-value of about 23, and the rigid adds another 5 (and cuts down on air infiltration.)  The roof is also insulated with blown in fiberglass (unfortunately we can't find the R-value information for the ceilings.)

Living Room Ceiling

The interior walls all have pink fiberglass batts.  Now that the insulation is in, we really get a sense of each room as an enclosed space.  We've walked through the walls for the last time!

Pantry

Guest Bedroom

Masster Bathroom

Things changed quite a bit in the last week, and the giant sheets of dry wall propped up around the house mean that it won't take long before it really begins to look like the interior of a house!

Living Room

A Long Winter

It's been a long time since the last update, mostly because not much has happened on Mt. Rubellite.  We've had an exceptionally cold and snowy winter, so there were quite a few days when our builder Dan told his crew not to come in. Paying the crew to stand around and shiver didn't seem to do anyone good, so progress slowed.  Dan also had to take the crew off our job for a while to fix another roof that was about to collapse.  We did push Dan recently to give us a timeline so that we can put our current house on the market at an appropriate time.  We now have a "conservative" move-in date of June 1, though they are already three weeks behind schedule.

But, with the days getting longer, the blizzards fewer (but not completely absent!), and the temperatures mostly above freezing, things have begun to pick up again.  We need to get this post in today, since hopefully by this time next week, the interior will be insulated and look very different.

The biggest update has been the siding. The house is almost completely covered in siding, with very little pink insulation visible.

View from the top of the driveway

Back of the garage and north side of the house

Front entry

South side of the house

Piping for the baseboard heaters sprung up like crocus shoots through the snow:

Other than that, not much else has happened that is photo-worthy.  We've spent the last few weekends in Portland narrowing our search for tile for the two bathrooms. We have made some progress on that front, but aren't ready to commit yet.  Along the same vein, we've been looking at lighting fixtures.  Plus, we've  been looking at and sitting on couches, and generally thinking about actually living in the house.  In the next week, fiberglass insulation will be blown in, followed shortly by installation of the sheet rock.  Then things will really feel like they are moving along!