Ben started this morning at 7:15 with a trip to Home Depot with Conner Johnson (young man in our ward who's spending his weekend off of school earning money helping us out). They came back for a quick breakfast of egg croissant sandwiches and then got to work.
Here's all the ply wood for the front half of the house - more than we hoped we'd have to replace.
Here's what the house looked like early off this morning.
I came out this morning to find Matt Brockbank also on our roof helping out (another young man earning money).
They worked all day on tear off from the east side of the roof.
Ben, Ashley Gosselin, Conner and Matt
Conner and Matt mid shoveling nasty, old shingles off onto the ground.
I took the 3 kiddos to the store to get lunch items for everyone (I'm watching Owen, Ashley's little guy, while Ashley helps us out) and while I was putting lunch together Conner started tearing off the old sheeting.
Our roof in shambles on the ground. Clean up is going to be loads of fun (literally, loads...)
Shortly after lunch Ben's progress came to a halt when he measured and realized how incredibly warped our main beam and all of the tresses are. Ugh.
(Note to self: Buy a newer house next time around... wait that sounds vaguely familiar. Isn't that what I say every time we embark on a home improvement project? Yes, I believe so.)
This was definitely the low point of the day. But thanks to help and advice from Chris Kelly, Jon Lanier and Jeremy McSpadden (my bro-in-law who just so happens to be a roofing contractor in WA) Ben found a solution!
I don't understand the grand plan completely, but it's something about propping and bringing old tresses into alignment and scabbing 1x6's onto the old tresses.
The good: We won't have to invest thousand more in all new tresses.
The bad: More money needed to buy the 1x6's
More good: It will only put us back another day, pushing us into next week.
Even more good: The weather has been gorgeous and is supposed to be gorgeous even next week.
Ben and Jon brainstorming
Then after this I put the boys to nap (amazingly enough the boys ARE sleeping through all the pounding, slamming, falling debris, etc). I decided to head out to see what I could help with for an hour or so and thought I'd start on some clean up and I started stacking wood out of the way. I thought, "maybe I should jog back and forth so I can get more done in my hour," then a little voice said, "No, you'll probably step on a nail if you get in a hurry." So I kept walking and started watching where I was going, avoiding stepping on any wood (most of which had nails poking through).
Well not even 5 minutes later I happened to step on a little shingle (imagine that.. it's everywhere) and I actually felt a nail go through my shoe and just poke my foot, luckily I caught this before I stepped down all the way on it. No damage done. Phew!
Then I really started watching where I was going. And not even 5 minutes after that... I stepped on another nail that was stuck to another shingle. duh. And this time I could feel that it was in my foot. I panicked! Luckily Ben was off the roof already and helped me right away. He pulled it out from the bottom of my shoe and that part didn't hurt at all. It didn't penetrate too deep, thank goodness, and didn't really bleed much. It has only hurt slightly the rest of tonight.
Needless to say I was done after that. I came inside and Lincoln was awake anyway. After cleaning up my foot, I gave Linc a hair cut (he's a trooper). And Owen came back over to play while his parents (Ashley and Peter) climbed on the roof to help more. And Devin Tidwell came over about that time to help too.
The boys and I went to pick up pizza for dinner for everyone. Then we just played (inside) the rest of the night. I was sure to show Logan the hole in my shoe and my poke in order to scare him so he won't wander outside without me. And when I told him what happened, he just got a cringed and appalled looked on his face and said, "Mom! That is not safe! You need to be careful! That is not safety!"
It gets dark at 7:30, but Ben started on some clean up and Richard Bird came over to help. Finally Ben came in at about 8:30. What a day for him.
The great news is the old 4 layers of shingles are all off now! And work resumes at 8 am tomorrow morning with putting drip edge and paper down on the back half of the house and shingles get delivered (to the roof) in the afternoon. They'll start to shingle the back half then Saturday Ben, Jon and Richard will start repairs on the front half. Yay!
The unexpected part of this for me, is that every single time I go outside, it seems there is someone new out there helping us . It's been humbling to remember what it feels like to be in need of so much help and to have people step up and drop what they're doing to help us. We are both so grateful. In fact, that was my Happy Ramble for today.
6 comments:
It's such a good feeling to have
help when it's really needed.
This is another one of those learning experiences for Ben.
What wow a project! I hope the rest goes smoothly and quickly.
Hm, there seems to be a ton of work needed before that roof can be finished. Removing the old shingles is pretty time-consuming, after all. Still, it's quite fun to do that, right? Shedding the old roof and installing a new one feels satisfying.
Santo Caridine
That makeover project seems difficult, but it's a good thing you learned how to lean on each other. I wonder how the project is now. Please show us what happened to that house.
Joanne Barragan
That's one heck of a roof tearing job! How's your roofing experience? I'm pretty sure that you had a lot of fun with it. Who could ever beat an experience where the family’s involved?
~ Scarlet Weingarten ~
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