For Part I, click here.
After I returned from the fruitless search for the missing sheet of plywood, I ate supper, went to bed, and tossed and turned too much of the night, considering various options for the next day.
The next morning I plotted out the work for the day. On one of my crawls underneath, I noticed that there were lots of staples sticking out. These would have hindered moving plywood sections and so I began removing them. I think it took me all morning to get them out; I don't remember if that was one-quarter of joists or all of them.
Finally, maybe it was after lunch, I measured out lengths of insulation and stuffed them between the joists, two layers of 3-1/2 inch denim "no-scratch". I think I did one "sixteen inch by six feet" section at a time. However, the insulation would not stay between the joists; it sagged and even dropped completely out.
I had set aside some of the old insulation supports, springy sixteen-inch wire rods. These did the trick of holding the insulation up. I also had a full package of them left from when I had first put insulation under the floor. Fortunately, I didn't let my wife throw them out or give them to a rummage sale.
Sometime in the afternoon, I had insulation in place on one-quarter of the joists.
My memory may be wrong, but I think I considered that it a good stopping place. The next step would be to cover what I had done with plywood. That would be the next visit's work. Now it was time to return my friend's trailer.
For some reason, I took the longer way around, thinking that a more direct road was still closed, even when I knew it had been opened. I had gotten directions to my friend's house from Two Harbors from Map Quest or Google. When I got into Two Harbors and cell phone coverage, I called him to let him know I was on my way (his Duluth number was long distance from our cabin). It's a good thing I did. He told me that I can't use Cant Rd. to get to his place.
When I did get there he noticed the tire iron wasn't on top of the loose spare tire. Hoo boy! At 65 mph it must have bounced out. At least traffic was sparse and it didn't slam into someone's grille or worse.
On Friday I returned to our cabin and tried getting a 4x8 sheet of 1/4-inch plywood in place to screw it to the joists. No way could I manage this by myself.
So I cooked up what I call Plan A-. My trying to cover the insulation with whole sheets of plywood was Plan B; the original Plan A having been to put the insulation in from the top. Plan A- was putting in pieces of plywood from the bottom and holding them up by some means.
Before I cut up my brand new sheets of plywood, I found some old, squirrel-chewed 1/4-inch plywood on our lumber left-overs pile. The squirrels probably liked the glue. There was enough good wood to make two about 70x14 panels. I also found that my circular saw, unused for many years, had a plywood blade and still worked.
My original thought had been to screw runners to the side of the joists and then zigzag the plywood up and let it drop back down. I measured a "pocket" carefully and tried to cut each piece carefully. I cut one piece in and tried to fit it in. I couldn't push up on one side and get the other side to go over the opposite runner. That didn't work so well. I took the runners off one side and then just held the piece up with one hand and used a cordless drill to put 1-1/2 screws every 18 inches or so. That worked.
Except! There were hangers over the support beams that prevented the piece from going completely to the outside edge. I had to make notches in the piece. Then, because I was using low supports to cut the plywood, my cuts weren't the straightest possible. I had to trim wherever a piece was too wide. And of course, the joists are not precision cut or placed lumber and are different distances apart - 14-1/2 inches one place and 14-1/4 another. Some places a piece may fit snugly, and other places there are huge gaps that will have to be filled with caulk.
To shorten this long tale of fortitude, stubbornness, stupidity, and cleverness, the two pieces of scrap worked, and so I cut four more pieces out of the new sheets. At five o'clock Saturday afternoon, I had one quarter of the insulation up and supported. Now I began putting all my scattered tools away. That took an hour. Then another hour straightening up the cabin and packing up. When I went to turn off the refrigerator I discovered I never turned it on. Fortunately the cabin had been so cold when I arrived the day before that the food stayed cool enough.
At about seven I drove out the driveway and locked the cable. I looked East down the road and saw a full moon almost over the center of the road. Take a few pictures. I should have done it with a tripod; the moon is bleary. Off I go on the hour-long drive listening to the latest "To the Best of Our Knowledge" on my iPhone plugged into the radio. It gets darker and darker. I'm not used to this. My eyes dart back and forth watching for deer. Then I realize I don't have my high beams on. Ah, that makes a difference.
Finally I arrive back in Duluth, but no way am I going to prepare supper for myself at this hour. I stop at Bulldog Pizza for a pint and a big sandwich. What a relief to sit down without a cabin floor hanging six inches from my face or without a steering wheel in my hands peering into the dark.
Still 3/4 of the insulation to go. At least the next time I'll have my wife there to help in so many ways.
