An Epic Week, part 1

June 1st marked the beginning of "Roof Week", a week we looked forward to and loathed at the same time.  We knew it was going to be a huge task, and having people up on that mountain of a roof was unnerving for me.  As the time grew closer, some people we thought we had lined up for work backed out, mostly for reasons beyond their control.  Needless to say we felt a bit stressed.  However, we still had some great workers that were planning on helping us.

Sunday morning came, and the blessings began.  Our church stepped in and offered to help out with planning meals for the group of workers for the entire week.  Lunch and dinner were provided from Monday to Friday.  This was amazing and unexpected.  I was prepared to feed them, and it probably would have taken up most of my week, planning and executing meals.  Not only did these ladies step in and help, but we were completely spoiled with wonderful food all week long.  Other people also helped and dropped off cookies, coffee, water, and other things.  Amazing.

The weather was calling for rain on Monday, but we started anyway.  It was a bit drizzly to start, but it cleared up in the afternoon.  We had several guys there to assist us, a few of whom were Jack's former students.  The roof had three layers of shingles: two layers of asphalt and the original cedar shakes.  The cedar shakes were especially messy and were harder to remove than the asphalt shingles.  A group was on the roof working and others were on the ground sending up supplies and cleaning up debris.  We also had people working around other parts of the house tearing down porch roofs, trimming bushes, and tearing out that ugly antenna (thanks Dad!).  What a crazy and wonderful day! After working 13 hours, we went home.  The first portion of the roof was stripped, sheathed, papered, and partially shingled.  Nobody fell off the roof, and I breathed a sigh of relief.  Day one was complete.

On Tuesday we had more people, and the amount of work that was completed was awesome.  Our friend and pastor, Mel, and his construction crew came to help out for the day.  Friends and family were there once again, many just volunteering to help, even when their schedules were busy.   It was humbling and wonderful.  Day two ended with the most complicated (and leaky) part of the roof stripped, sheathed, papered, and partially shingled.  

On Wednesday, we finished shingling the section of the roof that we started the day prior and continued to work on the porches.   It was not our intention to work on the porches so much, but in order to roof the small gable above the balcony, we had to make the balcony straight and support it.  In order to support the balcony, the roof below it had to be rebuilt, and so on.  It was kind of like the book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.  It all had to be done eventually, so we went for it.  The porch roofs were in rough shape.  They were rotted out in many areas, and were very unstable.  Minus Jesse falling through the porch roof up to his waist, it went well. Wednesday ended up being very productive, even though we didn't work on the roof itself as much as we had planned.  We had new helpers come on Wednesday, as well as many others who had come the day prior.  We were full of gratitude.  

To be continued...

Assessing the porches

Shingles delivered, scaffold set 

Our Monday crew

Sheathing the roof 

Support system for the balcony gable.  The entire beam and some of the porch rafters needed to be replaced.

Our friend Trevor came to help out with one of the many dirty jobs.

Getting Ready to strip the old roof

Tuesday morning.  What a crew!

Tuesday afternoon

Every night (except Friday), we worked until we were out of daylight.