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Okay, it wasn't that bad.
The ceiling is done. I started in earnest about 1:00 and started sweeping up the mess about 5:30.
I replaced a three foot wide strip across the width of the room - that's it in the picture there on the right (click for the large image). I played it smart, using my Dremel and a spiral bit to remove small, manageable pieces of the drywall - a drywall saw would have put a lot of shaking into the material and possibly pulled down more than I wanted. There was dust, yes, but not the amount I expected largely due to the facts that I held the nozzle of my shop vac close to the tool , and the insulation between the joists didn't just fall out like I thought it might. The insulation stayed put, and everything went very well...
...Until a large piece of the affected ceiling fell on my head and back. The piece was about two feet wide and five feet long and it felt like the entire house had collapsed on me. With it came dust and termite poop and mouse turds in a long cascade down my neck and back, in my hair and inside my shirt. Thankfully, I was wearing safety glasses and had my mouth closed at the time. (The kids were safe: Katie was grounded to her room and Jami was watching from a safe distance.) I went to the front porch and stripped to the waist, and Michelle toweled me off.
My back hurts in a line just above my bottom ribs, but I can't tell if it's from having a sheet of gypsum fall on me or from working overhead all day.
In any case, there were three joists exposed by the work. The first joist I sistered with new wood (mostly to give myself a nailing surface), the third was already sistered on the non-work area-side and didn't need anything. The second joist, however, was more eaten away than I thought: I went to grab hold of it to move one of the roof supports and it crumbled in my hand. Termites had turned it into an empty shell of a board, crushable with no more effort than crushing an empty beer can. That one I replaced completely, and removing it was easy.
After that, new insulation went in, new drywall over that and I have a few more seams to mud than I originally planned on for this project. I'm okay with that.
In other news, I got me a bicycle. I've been wanting one for several years and one of our neighbors sold me his for ten dollars out of his garage sale. It's an 18 speed mountain bike, lightweight and bouncy and electric blue. The rear calipers need adjusting, the whole thing needs to be oiled, but it's a smooth ride for all that. We didn't have any available cash, so Katie lent me the money.
Yeah, my daughter bought me a bike. Cool, huh?
I replaced a three foot wide strip across the width of the room - that's it in the picture there on the right (click for the large image). I played it smart, using my Dremel and a spiral bit to remove small, manageable pieces of the drywall - a drywall saw would have put a lot of shaking into the material and possibly pulled down more than I wanted. There was dust, yes, but not the amount I expected largely due to the facts that I held the nozzle of my shop vac close to the tool , and the insulation between the joists didn't just fall out like I thought it might. The insulation stayed put, and everything went very well......Until a large piece of the affected ceiling fell on my head and back. The piece was about two feet wide and five feet long and it felt like the entire house had collapsed on me. With it came dust and termite poop and mouse turds in a long cascade down my neck and back, in my hair and inside my shirt. Thankfully, I was wearing safety glasses and had my mouth closed at the time. (The kids were safe: Katie was grounded to her room and Jami was watching from a safe distance.) I went to the front porch and stripped to the waist, and Michelle toweled me off.
My back hurts in a line just above my bottom ribs, but I can't tell if it's from having a sheet of gypsum fall on me or from working overhead all day.
In any case, there were three joists exposed by the work. The first joist I sistered with new wood (mostly to give myself a nailing surface), the third was already sistered on the non-work area-side and didn't need anything. The second joist, however, was more eaten away than I thought: I went to grab hold of it to move one of the roof supports and it crumbled in my hand. Termites had turned it into an empty shell of a board, crushable with no more effort than crushing an empty beer can. That one I replaced completely, and removing it was easy.
After that, new insulation went in, new drywall over that and I have a few more seams to mud than I originally planned on for this project. I'm okay with that.
In other news, I got me a bicycle. I've been wanting one for several years and one of our neighbors sold me his for ten dollars out of his garage sale. It's an 18 speed mountain bike, lightweight and bouncy and electric blue. The rear calipers need adjusting, the whole thing needs to be oiled, but it's a smooth ride for all that. We didn't have any available cash, so Katie lent me the money.
Yeah, my daughter bought me a bike. Cool, huh?