Days 3 & 4

Not a whole lot new to report on the roof front... Monday morning was spent much the same way as Friday morning- figuring out how to make the lift work :) We also got a 2nd dumpster- woohoo! Chris cringed as they tried to put it in the driveway beside the 1st one, but thankfully they settled for the street beside the house. The crew spent Monday dismantling the East side of the house and today moved to the West side. I see a pattern here: I have deduced that the front side MUST be next!

Chester told Chris this morning that we almost had a problem! The back and west sides of the roof had two layers of shake to tear off (THAT explains all the mess!) and he only charged us for one layer of shake. Fortunately for us (and them, haha), the front and east side had no shake, so it all evened out.

Speaking of the shake... I haven't been home to see any of the roof torn off, so I had no idea what this shake looks like. I was picturing the shake you see on roofs or as siding, but it's a lot thinner and tighter than that(See picture). It actually looks like a pretty sturdy surface, but boy is it a pain in the butt to tear off! Lots of splintery little pieces and LOTS of nails!! That second dumpster we got this morning? Full by this afternoon.

I had a good laugh this morning when the guys told Chris they were taking bets on whether or not Chester ordered enough supplies- the looser has to buy lunch at Subway :) Coming home tonight and seeing one full sheet of plywood leads me to believe Chester is buying lunch. Hard to believe that 108 sheets isn't enough!

There's also a bet on what day they'll get done. I figure they'll do the front tear off tomorrow, get the whole thing shingled Thursday (maybe a little Friday am), and then have the flat roofs to do Friday. I'm thinking they're going to be more than 1 days work, so I'm predicting they'll be back Monday. We'll see! I wonder if they'll let me in on the bet...

Another thing we're having issues deciding is what to do with the landscaping around the house. There are a few pretty flowers on the east side, but for the most part it looks like overgrown weeds. We almost spent some serious time and money planting pretty things on the east side of the house this spring...

Good thing we didn't!!

Day 2

Day 2 started off a little short handed- A few of Chester's crew had other things to do, so there were only 4 guys working Friday. I looked out the window when they arrived to see that they were not kidding... they really did bring a lift back with them! I guess the idea of carrying things up tall ladders the hard way was a daunting task (I wouldn't do it either!) :)

Though I had my doubts on whether or not they really knew how to use it, they did eventually get the lift leveled and it came in quite handy I'm sure.

They got the north side of the house torn off, sheeted and put the felt on before their driver came back to get them. Unfortunately, neither Chris or I had the fabulous idea to shut the windows before this started, so we came home to a kitchen and hall full of wood dust- yuck!

We also learned something interesting about the house! If you've talked to me at all about this project, you know I have an internal struggle with what to do with the built-in gutters on the front porch. They're so full of tar at the front that the water just runs over, but we think it's a unique feature and would love to keep it since it's an original part of the house. Turns out during the tear-off that the guys discovered that the house also had built-in gutters. They had been covered with 1x8 (or close to), shingled over, and huge 1/2 round gutters installed to the outside of the house. Though we aren't even considering resurrecting this feature at this time, it's still neat to know it was there! Now just have to decide about the porch :)