Winterize Your Home

I haven't updated our blog in forever! Over the winter months we took a little break from renovations. There were a few things we did to help insulate the house. Jason caulked just about everywhere he could. He insulated the garage door by using construction foam glue to glue XPS Rigid Foam Board insulation to the door. You would be surprised at how much cold air was coming in through the laundry room via the garage. If you decide to do this on your own I will say that the insulation added weight to the garage door and it wouldn't open. We had to call the company and have them come out to re-calibrate the door. Not a big problem but definitely not expected. So you can learn from our mistakes!We added weather stripping to the bottom of all the exterior doors. This helped with the cold draft.

The change that made the biggest impact was in our master bedroom closet. We noticed that it was extremely cold this winter. On each side of the closet we have these little doors that lead to extra storage. Jason noticed that the storage areas weren't insulated and were on the exterior of the house. So he insulated the storage areas and added lights. Eventually we will sheet rock and carpet the space so we can store totes and luggage in it. But for now the insulation was a HUGE help. Our closet is no longer freezing cold!

One last change we made was to the attic door in Olivia's bedroom. Don't have a clue why they would put the access to the attic in a bedroom, but oh well. We noticed that her bedroom was colder than the others so Jason decided to try insulating the door to keep heat from escaping.

He used 1x4's and plywood to build a "box" inside the attic door. To enter the attic you simply push the box up. It's attached with piano hinges. The box is insulated with batt insulation on the attic side and XPS insulation around the 2x4 frame that it sits on. He sealed where those two meet with foam weather stripping.