Gravel Spreading

Daniel and I hooked up the trailer to Dad's truck and picked up some gravel to back fill around the window wells I dug last fall.

Good thing we have an excavator.

Ellen was helping too!

handyman

Daniel was once again my little helper buddy as we installed some new shelving in the hallway closet.

Getting some work done.

And he even brings his own tools.

Pantry Organized

When we first moved in to our house.  We liked the number and size of closets, including the pantry as a closet in this statement.  However, the shelving arrangement left much to be desired.  We thought re-shelving the closets would be an urgent project.

KT preps the walls after

ripping down the shelves.

Ten years later, I did a makeover on the pantry.  Better late than never!

KT likes the bright white, adjustable side shelves,

and much better utilized storage space.

Roof Complete

Saturday morning brought some more helping hands, Dave and Zeb joined in on the project.  While the rest of the guys got to it on the roof, I worked from below.  As project KT and I wanted to install a new bathroom fan as the old one was weak.  I cut a hole in the roof to access the attic space and made what seemed like 15 trips between the roof and bathroom to install the new fan.

Bathroom exhaust upgrade in progress.

Meanwhile, the shingles were being laid.

By lunch time we had worked our way most of the way up the back of the house.  The only valley on the roof was flashed and complete, we were past the roof penetrations, and it was hot, really hot.  The shingles were soft and easily damaged if walked on too roughly.  They were sticking immediately upon being laid.  After lunch we finished up the last several rows of shingles and got off the roof before inflicting any more damage.

Once again, having so many helping hands was a blessing.  We were nearly done and decided to finish up installing cap shingles and ridge vent later in the day.  About 5pm we headed back up for the final touches.  Wow, it was a lot of work but we got it all done in two days and an evening, and the new roof looks great!

Capping the hips.

Nailing caps onto the ridge vent.  Ten minutes after

this picture the roofing project was done!

Laying the New Roof

Jim, Ryan, Dad, and I began work right away Friday morning.  We finished installing the underlayment and cleaned up the flashing around the chimney.  Within ten minutes of being done and ready for the shingles, the delivery truck showed up.  Good timing.

Sure beats carrying them to the roof!

 38 square of shingles for our "little" roof.

 Next up was replacing the roof boots, including the one on the incoming power mast, and laying down the starter shingles.  With measurements made and chalk lines snapped, we began laying shingles.

 Nice to have a licensed electrician on the job site.

Keeping them straight.

 

Covering it up.

It was hot work.  The temperatures were close to 90 and it was challenging to stay hydrated.  Every time I thought I was thirsty I'd chug a bottled water.  We went through a lot of bottled water.

By the end of the day we had covered the north and south hips as well as the entire front side of the house.  The job was over 50% done by my estimation.  Falling asleep tonight will not be hard.

Raise the Roof

Our roofing project began tonight with the arduous work of stripping off the existing shingles and felt paper.  The dumpster was delivered yesterday to the driveway.  After work my crew arrived to get down to business.

Filling it up.

Ever seen a wheel barrow used on a roof?

The goal was to have the whole roof stripped before the sun went down.  Thanks to the nine of us working away, we got 'er done.  For peace of mind I really wanted to have underlayment on the whole roof before calling it day.  We had the underlayment down on all sides but the front when we ran out of light.  It was about 9:45 when we called it a day.  Many thanks to the all the helping hands!  It would not have been possible to get as far as we did without them.

Nice, sunny skies to work beneath.

 Daniel came up to check out the work.

The desired outcome, a full dumpster.