The Roof! The Roof!

The roof is on fire! We don't need no water, let the *AHEM*

Sorry, I got carried away - in order to keep this a family friendly blog, I'll stop singing right there...

Anywho, that could probably describe my feelings the weekend we tore the roof off of the porch. The day before the project started our area got hit by a big storm, leaving us without power for 48 hours. Chris and I crossed our fingers that when we got home there would be a tree lying across the roof, so we could hire this out, but no such luck!

We stuffed our disappointment deep down and moved forward. Saturday morning Chris' folks showed up to lend helping hands and a generator! My front yard turned into a work zone.

Chris and his dad immediately starting tearing the roof apart, strategizing the entire way. See we went into this without a plan (problem #1), all we knew is that we had a budget and we needed to fix the leak!
We went shopping at our local Menards to pick up everything we needed, or so we thought. Just note that without a plan you may be likely to head back for additional supplies - we had a total of 5 trips in 3 days. But the old roof was off and the new one was starting to take shape - that where Problem #2 comes in... see Chris and I had two very different "shapes" in mind... Kelli = peaked "looking" roof stretched from wall to edge... Chris = keep steep sides and slant only the flat portion, leaving it still looking "flat" from ground level. Ugh. Chris wins, cause he had the hammer.
But luckily, we had lots of assistance to get us through this hiccup and back on track! Not only did Chris' parents assist, but my Uncle Jeff lent a hand during our BBQ that Sunday! Chris and I could not be more grateful. You have to love that family is always there for you, especially when you are without power, had cold showers and are living on cold sandwiches. By the end of the weekend we had the new roof shething (hmmm I wonder if that's the right word... note to self, increase construction vocabulary) in place.

On Monday, Chris and I put on the drip edge, tar paper, other black stuff and trimmed some boards (oh yeah, more building terminology is needed)! Next up was shingling and Dad was there for the assist! He spent a few weeknights at our place helping Chris shingle, while mom and I supervised safely from the ground with wine in hand!

Here is what it looks like today. We had some extremely hot weekends, and with nothing leaking we left if as is. Last Sunday we got back at it and tore off some siding to get flashing installed, now comes the task of replacing the siding... Problem #3 - 100 year old siding, hard to find. 4 inch cedar wood siding, nearly impossible to find, and pricey to boot... but we are slowly tracking pieces down and tonight we will being to put them up!

Still a few nights work to crank out, but hoping to have this project wrapped up by the end of the month! Once completed I will be back with pictures, a breakdown of the budget and possibly plans for the inside.