Another weekend down the drain

Okay!  The barn is now completely insulated.  Well, the horses' stalls are - not the tack room.  But hey - I have a house if I'M cold.  Actually, the stalls aren't completely enclosed either -- the ceiling hasn't been closed in so they're still open to the roof.  But later on we plan to put a floor up there so there will be storage space above the stalls.  The stalls will still be about 12 feet high even after the ceilings are put in - more than high enough.

 Once the bottom was done, Mark let Jerry take over putting in the top insulation from the ladder.  A good thing so Mark wouldn't have to balance on there.  It's good to have Jerry's help on all this stuff.

That guy we discovered on Groupon came out and gave us estimates first on replacing the weather seals on all the doors, and re-caulking all the windows, and then on the serious projects.  He's going to go under the house and spray insulation under the floors, then cover that with bat insulation, then cover the whole thing with some sort of screening stuff stapled to the joists (to keep the cats and mice and possoms, etc. from making homes in the stuff).  That's going to be quite a challenge, given the fact that there's only about 18 inches of space below the joists!  Fortunately, he's smaller than Mark.  Still, it's going to be tight.  Then once that's done, he's going to spray insulation in the attic to raise the R-value from 19 to 49.  Fortunately, we WILL be getting a fair amount of money back on our taxes -- eventually.  That is if the Feds ever accept our return.  I did file it electronically yesterday, then immediately got a notice that:

Due to recent tax law changes, the IRS has delayed processing of all electronic and paper returns for those taxpayers claiming the following deductions:

Education Expenses
Tuition and Fees Deduction
General Sales Tax
Itemized Deductions
Casualties and Thefts
District of Columbia First-Time Homebuyer Credit
General Business Credit
First-Time Homebuyer Credit and Repayment of the Credit
Alcohol and Cellulosic Biofuel Fuels Credit
Qualified Electric and Plug-in Electric Vehicle Credit
Alternative Motor Vehicle Credit
Qualified Plug-in Electric Drive Motor Vehicle Credit

Doesn't it seem a little peculiar to be changing the tax law for 2010 AFTER the end of the year???  Oh, well -- I guess we'll see what happens.