Cutting Nevada

The walls are out, so it's time for new walls to go in.

We've stripped away all the old drywall and started to prepare the room for its new shape. In other words, the demolition is pretty much done; now it's time for construction.

Step 1 of the process is insulating. No part of this house has ever been insulated, an oversight we intend to correct one room at a time. As I mentioned earlier, it's tricky to insulate an old house because you have to be careful not to trap moisture in the walls, which were designed to "breathe" (i.e., be drafty). This is particularly tough in a bathroom. And especially so in a bathroom directly under the roof. A roof that faces south.

So we're filling the walls with two-inch thick slabs of EPS, or expanded polystyrene. It doesn't absorb moisture like pink fiberglass batting does, and it's got a skin on both sides to repel dampness. One side is shiny foil; that points outward to reflect the sun's heat. The other side is just white plastic with all sorts of certifications printed on it. After staring at the back of it for a few days I'm pleased to announce that it's Energy Star–compliant, non-corrosive, CFC-free, HCFC-free (whatever that is), contains no formaldehyde, is mold-resistant and insect-resistant, and for all I know, gluten-free and low in saturated fat.

It's also pretty easy to handle and doesn't make your arms itch like fiberglass. That's good, because I had to spend a lot of time cutting all the pieces to shape. Naturally, none of the rafters are on standard 16-inch spacing. In fact, they're not even consistent with one another. I had to cut every single piece separately to fit a specific bay between rafters. Exactly two of them were rectangular; all the rest were oddly shaped and took multiple cuts.

The next one (here in the center of the photo) is shaped like Nevada, but backwards. Lake Tahoe is about where the wires are dangling. It'll be fun.