Roof


Early in Spring of 1998, shortly after buying the house, we discussed redoing the roof ourselves. It sounded like a big job but if our friends could do the roof on their house, which is the mirror image of our house, then we reasoned that we could do our roof too - with their help of course. We bought 70 sheets of 1/2 inch CDX plywood and 10 rolls of tar paper at Home Depot right away, partly because we had a 10% coupon that was about to expire and partly because we really thought we'd do the roof soon. We managed to escape the El Nino rains unscathed but weren't sure the 30+ year old shake roof could stand another rainy season. So the wood and paper were delivered to our garage and there they sat.

They sat through the summer while we both worked long hours at our jobs and managed to squeeze in some time for gardening. They sat through the fall while we started work on the bathroom and had new windows installed. Fortunately the winter wasn't so bad and the roof survived but as summer approached we thought we should do something about the roof. The 4'x8'x3' solid plywood table in the garage was also getting in the way of our other projects. We had decided sometime last fall that we were now in a better economic position to contract out the reroofing. We also didn't look forward to spending a couple weekends working on the roof and I don't think our friends were up to it either. So we let our fingers do the walking (and in one case the internet) and called in some roofers for some estimates. The estimates ranged from not too painful to the "you have got to be kidding." Not only was the highest bidder outrageous but they wouldn't start for 2-3 months. The not-too-painful company gave us a nice discount to use the wood and paper we already had and started 3 working days later.

Work on the roof begins...


On May 4th, a team of men tore off the old shake roof and put down the plywood and paper. The house was rockin' all day which sent Sam and Ella into hiding.
Click picture to see a larger image, then use your "Back" button on your browser to return:

Before

After






Home

Projects