Nothing says "party" on a Saturday night like installing denim insulation, and that's exactly what Dakota and I did last weekend. Jealous? Thought so. Actually, it was kind of fun (in a way) and made us feel like some actual progress was being made on our slow and steady kitchen remodel.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was able to find a local supplier of UltraTouch Natural Cotton Fiber Insulation in the Los Angeles area. So, last Saturday night, we ripped open the roll of insulation and laid it out on the floor to fluff up. It comes in long strips and basically looks like a long rectangle of dryer lint.

Here's Nigel demonstrating how safe and non-toxic UltraTouch is.



The UltraTouch website uses babies and small children to make this same point, but I think Nigel should become their new spokesmodel. I mean, look how excited he is to be resting on layers of earth-friendly insulation.

Nigel also decided to help us install the insulation. Here he is weighing down a piece while Dakota cuts it to fit between some studs.



I had read that denim insulation can be difficult to cut, but we just used an old saw and a box cutter and did fine. I guess our edges weren't particularly smooth, but since the insulation will be hidden inside the walls, I'm not too worried about it. Overall, installing the UltraTouch was pretty darn easy. It took us about an hour and was so foolproof that I was able to help.



Up to now, the kitchen work has either involved heavy demolition skills or woodworking skills, both of which I lack. But I think we may be heading into a stage in which I might actually be able to do more than lend moral support and research skills. I'm glad, because Dakota has been working exceptionally hard.

Here's one kitchen wall, nicely insulated.



Since the kitchen is on a back, unshaded corner of the house, it really gets blasted by the sun in the summer. The addition of the insulation, plus ceiling fans and energy-efficient windows will hopefully make a big difference when the weather gets hot again.

The weather for the last couple of days has been very unpleasant: dry, hot and windy. Of course, I have nothing to complain about compared to the poor people in Montecito, Sylmar and North-Eastern Orange County. Fires are raging all over Southern California, and they are so extensive that the smoke has even made it to our place near downtown Los Angeles.

This afternoon, the chickens decided to beat the heat with a good, old-fashioned dust bath. Both Peggy and Tina dug themselves some shallow holes and got busy flopping around in the dirt. Ever the vigilant chicken chronicler, I whipped out my camera and got some action shots.





And, I also made a little video, so you can see what a genuine chicken dust bath looks like. Tina was really getting into hers, flinging dirt all over herself for at least 20 minutes.


Chicken Dust Bath from Audrey on Vimeo.

She makes a funny happy chicken noise around 1:10. See if you can hear it.

There's been a good amount of progress on the kitchen remodel in the last couple of weekends, so I thought I'd do a little update. Dakota has been working very hard, ripping out the old stuff so we can put new stuff in. First, he pulled down the plaster walls in the old kitchen.



In addition to clearing out the kitchen walls down to the studs, he also removed all the cabinets, tile countertops and backsplashes.



Next to go was the kitchen ceiling, which was actually a layer of drywall over a layer of plaster. Removing the kitchen ceiling was necessary because we plan to join the old dining room ceiling to the new kitchen ceiling. Also, Dakota hates shoddy work and sometimes prefers to just re-do it from scratch rather than patch it.



Tearing down the walls and ceiling was a messy, difficult job. In addition to all the plaster dust, there was the added nastiness of the old fiberglass attic insulation. Dakota spent a lot of time wearing his dust mask. But, after many weekends of hard, hard work, the tear down was complete. Now our kitchen has an open ceiling, all the way up to the roof.



It looks kind of cool, but we'll be putting up a new drywall ceiling and filling the attic in with cellulose insulation soon. With our lack of central heat or air, we need all the insulation we can get. In fact, we'll be insulating the kitchen walls, too.

Since our goal has been to do a "green remodel," we really wanted to use recycled denim insulation in the walls, because it's both Earth-friendly and non-toxic. The main manufacturer of denim insulation is Bonded Logic. They sell it under the band name Ultra Touch. This insulation is made from cotton and denim scraps that have been treated with a boron-based fire retardant. It's LEED certified and so safe you can let your baby play on it, or at least that's how the Bonded Logic folks like to advertise it, with lots of photos of babies and small children hugging the insulation.

At first, we had a hard time finding a distributor in Southern California that didn't sell it with a massive mark-up. ("Green home centers" have a tendency to do this with a lot of their materials.) Happily, I managed to track down the insulation at Ganahl Lumber in Los Alamitos. Not only is Ganahl only a 30-min drive away, it also has the lowest price I'd seen for the Ultra Touch. So, I swooped down last weekend and picked up a 106 ft2 package, which is just the right amount to insulate the exterior walls of the kitchen. It just barely fit in my car.



Now that the walls and ceiling are out, Dakota's been ripping up the layers and layers of old floor. At the same time, we're having the wiring put in by our very nice neighbor, who's also an electrician. I'm so excited to have outlets in places where outlets should be, and to have switches that make sense.



In fact, I'm excited about so many things, and we're almost to the part where the old stuff is finally gone and the new stuff starts to arrive. It's been an only mildly inconvenient project so far. We've even been able to cook and access our fridge for most of the time. The only one who's really unhappy about all the loud noises and dirty floors is Nigel. He's had to resort to hiding under the desk in the back room. Poor guy.