4230 Raleigh Street Construction Update – Insulation and Drywall

It’s been a while since we updated the status of 4230 Raleigh Street. As you’ll see below, the house is really starting to take shape from the interior. As for the exterior, we will be starting trim paint as well as brick installation next week.

Below you can see the finished installation of our blown cellulose insulation for the above grade spaces of the home. It is made of approximately 80% recycled newspaper and when used with our 2×6 finger jointed studs we are able to achieve an R21 insulation rating for our walls. The roof will come in at an R48 as we have more space to insulate in the attic. The insulation is actually blown through a large flexible hose and sticks to itself as well as the exterior sheathing through the use of water based adhesive mixed into the material. Once in place, the contractors scrape it flush with the inside face fo the studs and we’re left with what you see below.

Here’s a shot of the finished installation in the kitchen area.

Here is a close up shot of the insulation material. You can see the bits of recycled paper.

The master bedroom walls are complete. Once we have the ceilings in we can insulate the roof.

The basement walls need to be insulated with a non cellulose insulation as the potential for moisture to come through the concrete would cause problems. As you can see, we have a plastic vapor barrier in place between the insulation and the soon to be installed basement drywall.

Another view of the basement insulation installed.

Once the insulation was finished we had the drywall crew get started. Ceilings were hung first. Below is shot of the installed living room ceiling.

As you may know, hanging drywall is the easy part. With a crew of four the house was hung in just over two days. Here is a shot of the main floor bedroom with the walls and ceiling hung.

Now for the fun part. Regardless of the final texture, tape and mud is labor intensive. As we have decided to go with a smooth drywall finish the crew has to be even more meticulous in their finishing as we have no texture to cover imperfections. While more costly, the smooth finish will give the home a feel closer to the original homes of the neighborhood with their smooth plaster walls.

Things are starting to wrap up. This shot shows the surface after several coats of mud and sanding in between. I’m looking from the rear sliding doors towards the future kitchen.

One of the crew working on the basement stairs. it was quite impressive to see him walking around and working as if the stilts weren’t even there. I suppose you get used to it but a tumble here would be ugly.

One more shot of the living area with it’s final mud coat. We’ll be starting interior paint early next week and flooring will come in two weeks.

Lastly, here’s the secret for going strong all day… full bore soda, tamales, and hot sauce.