I've started laying in the Ultratouch insulation batts between the floor joists:



This stuff is super easy to work with. It is essentially recycled denim (i.e. cotton fibers), so there is no real need to wear gloves or a mask like you'd have to do when dealing with fiberglass batts. This stuff tears easily if needed, and this allowed me to quickly fill in the spaces between all of the floor joists.



After laying the insulation down, I started screwing down the 1/2" plywood "subfloor". Technically, I don't really need this layer of plywood, but the plywood layer accomplishes two key things:

1) It will help tie the joists together even more (acting as a dimensionally stable rigid sheathing layer in two dimensions)
2) It helps raise the floor slightly, which is important because both the door and the loft ladder /stairs I made this winter assume a slightly higher floor than the goat floor alone will achieve.



I still have a lot of work to do on the floor system. One full day of work should finish it off.

I still have to decide on a vapor barrier material between the subfloor and the goat floor. Most information I can find seems to indicate that I should use 15 pound roofing felt. A few recommend 6mil polyethylene. Roofing felt would be easier to work with, but I wonder about that asphalt smell and related gases.

After all the insulation and entire subfloor is laid, the to-do list is:

1) Level the tops of the loft joist timbers with a hand plane (these pine loft joist timbers warped somewhat and the loft floor joists are not all straight. I need to create a level surface on the top of those joist timbers to put the "loft ceiling", which will be finished tongue-and-grooved cedar placed orthogonal to the loft joists. The fir flooring will sit on top of the cedar loft ceiling.

2) Finish applying penetrating oil to some timbers that didn't get oiled last year.

3) Start the exterior frame.