Starting on the new balcony

Since I'll be eventually be living only upstairs while I work on the downstairs and basement, I need a way to get in up there.  I'd rather it be nice, so I just need to build a balcony off the master bedroom in the back.  This roof next to the master bedroom is weird, so I'm just going to rebuild that along with it.  First step is removing that asbestos siding I guess.

I decided to mark out where I want the supports to be and then start on plans for the framing and footings.

The vertical joists are for the balcony part, and the horizontal ones are for the roof next to it, and that continues back farther than the drawing shows.

I had one of my civil engineer friends help with the math for the column sizes, and this what we came up with at the beginning.  It's built strong enough for high snow loads with minimal sinking into the ground over time.  It'll probably be strong enough to park a car on, but its not really big enough to do that.

Now that's a lot of concrete bags, I ended up getting the 50lb ones since they cost about the same per bag as the 80lb bags but are easier to handle.

And some more marking to for scale, and it's nice to see this stuff more before digging.

Attic insulation

 This was pretty similar to the last time I did this with my dad.

It's pretty cramped and hot up there, but at least this blower setup moves a ton of air so there's a good wind going on.

Had to cut a hole to get the last bit up there

I didn't have enough cellulose to finish it up so I ended up having to buy a few bales.  Turns out the machine is free to use (with a deposit) and the cellulose is pretty cheap.  I really should have just thrown all of mine out as it came out, and then bought new insulation with how much time I spent on moving it around and stuff since using the machine was far easier than my homemade thing.

The blower I used for ventilation works pretty well and looks cool when there's a lot in the air.  It helps that the motor is running at about double its rating though.

Rear room ceiling drywall

Last bedroom was the one that I already have done once, so that made it much less enjoyable...

Bathroom and Hall Ceiling Drywall

I'm using MMR drywall for the bathroom and walls surrounding it, so it's blue.

Why not put up one of the wall panels too I guess.

This is how I'm containing the low voltage wiring that has to go through the ceiling since it might actually need to be replaced at some point to support modern interfaces.

Lowe's didn't have any conduit elbows so I just ended up using a normal PVC one...

These triangle pieces are a real pain.

Lots of holes for boxes in the hallway.

Most of it is done now which is nice.

Smoke detectors

Because of the extent of the remodel, I have to follow modern building code with a hard-wired smoke detector in each bedroom and one in the hallway.  I decided to color the wiring red with a Magnum Sharpie so it would be easily identifiable in the future.

I should have worn gloves...

Front room ceiling drywall

This room was definitely easier than the first, which was nice.

Trimming the foam still makes a mess...

Side room ceiling drywall

I decided to start with the hardest part of the ceiling drywall.  I had to trim the sprayfoam first, I found that my oscillating multitool worked best, but man was it dusty.  By far the worst dust I've dealt with so far since it is so light it stays in the air and is very irritating to eyes.

It also made a huge mess on the floor

It took a while to get the pieces to fit correctly, and man is it going to be a pain when I get to mudding to make it look good.

The rest of the ceiling went up easier though.

I'm leaving a section of drywall out of the ceiling in each room so it's easier to blow insulation in after.