This week was full of new experiences for me as I got started on the garage. Insulation and drywall are definitely not the most glamorous of home projects, but I was excited to learn some new skills.

The walls of my garage that do not touch the house were never finished, so I decided that would be my first step of this project. Not only will finished walls make the garage more comfortable to work in, but it will look much better too.

My first step was to go around the garage, pull everything away from the walls, and clean up any sawdust or random nails around the studs.

After that I started putting in insulation, which went quicker than I anticipated. I got a size to fit in between the studs, measured and cut it to size with a utility knife and then stapled them to the studs with the paper side facing in the garage. I made sure to wear gloves because the fiberglass insulation can irritate your skin.

There are so many tutorials on how to put insulation up online, so I spent some time going through those before I started.

Once that was up, it was time for drywall. A couple of things I learned quickly: drywall is heavy, and it is dusty. I made sure to wear a mask when cutting it. At first, I bought some blades for my utility knife to cut through the drywall. Although this worked, it was pretty labor-intensive.

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After trying to cut that way a couple of times, I broke out my new Ryobi battery operated circular saw for the first time. It made the process so much easier and might be one of my new favorite tools!

Just like the insulation, I looked up multiple online tutorials on putting up drywall before I started.

Many tutorials recommend working from the top down on drywall, which I have not done, but I think that’s okay.

So far, I’ve been working my way around the room. I will probably have the drywall up in the next couple of days and then start taping, mudding and painting.

If you’d like, check out the other bloggers participating in the One Room Challenge! I’ll keep posting on my progress throughout the six weeks.