The first major house project

One of the first big projects around the house was one of the most important... the roof. It wasn't leakin' that we knew of, but since it was the original roof on the house when it was built in '85, it was time to get it done. I think they call that preventative maintenance, or somethin' silly like that. The girl decided that last weekend needed to be the weekend that it happened, and since I spent most of the previous month turkey huntin', I wasn't inclined to argue much. We got lucky with Momma Nature, and drew a pretty clear weekend. We did battle a few raindrops here and there, but nothin' too substantial.

It'd been about 20 years since I'd worked on a roof, and I didn't have much of a plan to go about it. Thankfully, the girl's ol' man, Dave, had a good idea of what needed to be done, and I'm damn glad we had him to ramrod the outfit. He was there every hour to lend his expertise and sage advice. Her brother Josh was right there with us the whole time as well, and we had some welcome appearances by Tater and Joe, and the girls also pitched in their fair share as well.

We got started bright and early Friday mornin' by strippin' all the old junk off. That was the easy part, and we pretty much had it wrapped up by the early afternoon. We took a run into town to get all the supplies we needed to put the new roof on, and called it a day.

Meanwhile, Tons of Fun Worthless Sadie took up residence in the spare bathroom tub. She ain't much like the supervisors over at Sunnybrook Farm. If us bangin' around on the roof wasn't skeery enough, she's deathly afraid of Tater after he spent the night sawin' lumber on the couch one night a few years ago. His snorin' is damn near enough to wake the dead. She's runnin' for a hidin' spot before his truck is halfway up the driveway anytime he drops by.

Saturday, we started off bright and early with layin' the new stuff. We worked on the scary side of the roof first, so we were inclined to take our time.  I ain't necessarily afraid of heights, I'm just afraid of the big damn splat I'd make if I hit the ground.

Regardless, it was slow, tedious work. And then it got hot to boot. Brutal sun, and not a cloud in the sky. We worked 'till dark on Saturday, and it just wasn't lookin' good to get the roof done by the end of Sunday.

We did work a little quicker on Sunday... Unlike Saturday, there was some sporadic cloud cover that helped keep us a little cooler. We were able to navigate most of the ridges and valleys a little quicker than I thought we would, and we made pretty decent time. We finally knocked off after dinner when the rain started, and by then almost everythin' was done except for the chunk over the breakfast nook and gettin' the roof vents back on. Needless to say, we were all ready to go back to our regular jobs on Monday so we could get a break. We were whooped.

We picked at the last of it on Monday afternoon, and Tuesday afternoon, I was finally able to put the finishin' touches on it. Let's just say I was damn glad to finally get offa that roof.

T'was one helluva project, that took a lot of man hours and patience. I'm very thankful for all the help we got, and even more thankful that it's done.