Continuing the Roof

Hello everyone. In the last month and a bit, we’ve managed to complete sheeting the roof and have moved on to shingling.

The roof we designed is tricky, and if we were to start this process over again we would go with a much, much simpler roof. Though dormers and complex roofs can look great, we’re questioning if it’s worth the extra headache and effort. Unfortunately, we are now stuck with the choices we made so a roof that took over a month to sheet and we suspect will take a month to shingle is what we’ve got.

Due to the pitch of our roof being so steep and the whole thing being so high, we picked up several roof jacks to give us platforms to stand on as we put up the drip edge, ice & water shield, tar paper, and, of course, shingles. (They help, but it’s still scary being up that high.) To date, we have the northeast dormer (the upstairs bedroom not facing the lake) finished and the middle north dormer (the loft/office) half finished. So far we seem to be going through fewer shingles than we anticipated.

We also took a bit of time to cut out the windows with a reciprocating saw. This gives us a better idea of how much (or more accurately how little) light will get into the house. Not nearly as dark as the old house we had, but with all the windows the house has, it still has surprisingly little sunlight. The upside to that is that the house will remain cool even on the hottest days without an air conditioning unit. We also know due to the lower arc of the sun that we will actually get more sunlight in the house during the winter months.

We already suspected that would be the case given our experiences living in the old house, but it’s nice to have it confirmed. Of course, if we do find the house too hot at any point over the summer we can always go jump in the lake, which is never warm even in August or September. A swim, even a quick one, will cool us down right quick, and even with so much to still do this summer, we can’t wait to get back into the lake. (Except that we can because it’s still freezing in May.)

Anyway, that’s all for now. Hopefully, now that tax season is over and it’s warm enough to get more done in a day these updates will start coming more frequently, but honestly I don’t make any promises. Thank you very much for following along on our journey and for your patience as these blogs have been sporadic. We’re happy to share this process with you.