My goal was set, my coarse laid out, and my timetable set in stone. For two months my work had been interrupted by daily rains which gave me the chance to check my newly laid floor for leaks. Thankful to whoever the genius was that invented Advantec flooring. It’s very weather resistant and doesn’t buckle when it finally dries. It also stays very sturdy even when wet. I realized that I had to get this building in the “dry” , post haste.

So getting a roof over the whole house was my next goal. As added incentive I wanted to get the roof on before July when like everywhere else in the U.S. is when the really hot humid weather hits. This gave me three months to finish framing my exterior walls and build my roof trusses, get it decked, tar papered, and shingled. Easy-peasy.

I had two and half walls to finish framing. One 24 feet long and one 20 feet, and one 8 foot section of the front wall. At the center of the 24 footer was a kingpost that runs from floor to roof peak that supports the end of the beam that constitutes my roofline. ( You may remember that I was going for timber frame construction). So after I knocked out the 8 foot section of the front wall I figured that I had best set this king post and work from the middle outward. Which I did. By making a 12 foot section of wall using 6 inch studs spaced at 12 inch centers. (over built I know. 16 inch centers are preferred but as I may have mentioned. I tend to overbuild). After I had the wall built laying flat on the floor I promptly realized that there was no way I was going to lift this monster into place by myself. Time to call in a favor from the brother-in-law.

The only trouble is that the brother-in-law was working on his own project and I had to wait patiently until he was able to help. Result. Time wasted. This of course was just the tip of the iceberg and there were many things to follow that kept pushing me behind schedule. Things like running out of nails, and screws unexpectedly and having to make unscheduled trips to the hardware store. Wearing out my powered screw driver tip, and (this one happened the most out of any of them.) coming in for lunch and falling asleep while I digested. All these unavoidable delays cumulated into pushing my timetable into non existence. And as July rolled around I still had not even gotten to decking the roof.

Luckily Mother Nature was feeling benevolent. Maybe she felt guilty for raining on me for 2 months earlier in the season. This July was one of the coolest on record. So I redoubled my efforts and by dragging myself out of bed at the crack of dawn I was able to get the roof decked in about two weeks. Getting up early had a few side effects though. One was that I more frequently fell asleep after lunch. But as I’m not one for breakfast , lunch was a necessity. Another side effect was that my concentration was not as sharp as it could be. And after joining the “ purple finger” club, and confirming my membership countless times. I finally had the roof decked.

After the roof was decked I confidently told my lovely bride on that Monday, that ‘We would have a completed roof by the end of the week.”. This was an incredibly stupid comment to make. The same type of ignorant remark that I made when my truck started giving me trouble, and I said “I ain’t putting no more money in this truck.”, and did nothing but put money into it for the next 3 weeks. Luckily I didn’t specify by which weeks end I would have a roof on the house. And did in fact have it done on a Friday. It just happened to be a Friday in the middle of August.

First off I didn’t consider how slow I was going to be climbing up and down the ladder a hundred times with shingle bundles over my shoulder. Not to mention how slow I would be moving on the roof since I really really really hate heights. I also had to take time out to rough in a front porch when I realized that since it had a roof I had to have it up before I could tarpaper and shingle the front slope of the roof. Finally, I didn’t realize how shaky said roof would feel without any side walls up to stiffen the frame of the house, and had to take time out to put the corner wall boards up.

Eventually I carried up the last bundle of shingles though , and nailed them into place. I was never so happy to have a job behind me as I was that roof. I might also mention that when shingling the rear slope I decided to install a roof turbine to help cool the attic. It was very hard to take the chainsaw to my nice roof to cut the hole for the turbine. I think I wept. But the tears helped to lubricate the chain on my saw. So all was good.

Unfortunately I know that someday in the future my roof will have to be repaired or rebuilt. Nothing lasts forever. I think we might just hire that out next time.