Hurricane Motivation

The outward movement of our east wall (see previous post) produced an unusual trim on our house: the first floor wall comes out about six inches farther than the second floor wall. Thus we have a ledge at the top of the first floor wall. We found out the first time we got a heavy rain--and to a greater extent when Tropical Storm Irene made her way through our woods--that in spite of our contractor's best efforts, water gets in through the ledge. We had water dripping from the inside of our door frame and window. It made our hearts sink: our next dream was to get new flooring in the kitchen. But there's no point in new flooring if it's just going to get wet.

When we started dreaming about moving the wall, we also dreamed about a shed roof that would keep weather off the front door and window, and give visitors a place to stand when arriving on rainy days. With the discovery of water entering the wall, we took the money that would go to the flooring and pushed up the schedule on roof construction to . . . right now.

Last Monday I dug the hole for the corner post, and borrowed a truck (thanks, Bobby!) to pick up the building supplies. Here's the roof, all stacked up in our garage:

On Tuesday, Conner and I sank the first post and got the other two cut:

 On Wednesday I got the header up on the posts and kerfed the siding for the plate. The bear of the job was getting the flashing under the tar paper, so that in the future any water that got in through our old board and batten on the second floor wouldn't slip through to the first floor. It was a blessing and a curse to discover that the guy who built our house didn't put up any plywood on the outside of the exterior studs. The blessing was that it made it easier (though not easy) to get the flashing in; the curse is that we've got one fewer layer of protection and insulation than most houses have.

 On Thursday, Brandon came over and helped me to get the plate up:

 On Friday, Conner and Brandon helped me to secure the plate with lag screws:

 I'm into public service--like putting teenagers to work so they don't have as much energy to get into trouble elsewhere.

 When they weren't arguing about the existence of faeries or whether The Hulk could survive a nuclear winter, these two did a respectable amount of labor--for freshmen.

 While we were at it, we got the rafter stencil cut and the first two rafters in place:

That evening I had a little extra time, so I got the first half of the rafters done; the haze in this photo is from the humidity and coming rain building up in the air:

 On Saturday, I finished the rafters:

On Sunday afternoon I got the first half of the sheathing on:

As of this evening (Monday), I finished the sheathing but for a few nails. The light drizzle in which I had been working turned to real rain, so I had to knock off for the day. At least now there's a physical watershed away from that exterior ledge, so I don't feel under so much pressure to work fast.

I think I'll need a holiday from major house construction after this project's done.

~ emrys