The old garage/utility room is finally starting to look like finished living space. After passing our rough-in inspections it was time to insulate and drywall the place.
The insulation was fairly straight-forward. The walls are 2×4 studs so normal R13 fiberglass rolls worked well for this. The bottom 16″ of the walls, however, are concrete block. For this, I used 1/2″ rigid foam insulation and basically glued it to the wall. They actually make an adhesive caulk specifically for this purpose. Oddly enough, it’s called “foamboard adhesive” and it’s a lovely teal blue…The drywall phase was when the room really took shape. A drywall panel lift (see this post) was again invaluable as I installed the ceiling drywall. Two of the pieces were nearly a full twelve feet and I could install it by myself with this amazing tool that costs only around $45 to rent for the day.
The block wall at the bottom sticks out around 3-4″ from the wall above. This small ‘ledge’ will later receive a piece of 3/4″ thick trim where the owners can put knick-knacks or set their coffee cups… (I always have coffee on the brain 
-Peter
