Window trim and a cool demo

We met with the finish carpenter (who, disappointingly, is not from Finland) this week, and he began building the trim around the inside of the windows. They mimic the style of the outside window trim, where the top piece of trim is a bit wider than the rest of the window. The carpenter began building the new trim and window sills out of hemlock, and they look beautiful! Our cat will be so happy to have all these wonderful new seats. We plan to keep the inside window trim a stained wood color, whereas our floor and door trim will be painted white.

We also had Blake do a cool demonstration for us this week. You may remember that the insulation inside our walls is cellulose, made out of treated recycled newspaper. Most regular homes use fiberglass insulation. You might be wondering, isn't newspaper flammable? Well, the cellulose is treated with borate, making it much less likely to burn than regular fiberglass. Blake did this demonstration to prove it -- watch what happens to the penny versus the cellulose:

The temperature got up to at least 800 degrees, and yet the cellulose did not catch on fire. And here is the same blowtorch being used on regular fiberglass insulation: