Roof Is Done!!!!

Fiiiiinally, I've got my roof finished. All the shingles are on and I'm still in one piece despite a couple minor mishaps along the way. Of all the construction steps, installation of shingles was the one for which I most grossly underestimated the time required. Everyone told me framing would go quickly. It did. Everyone told me shingling would go quickly. It did NOT! Partly because it is very difficult to stand or walk on a roof as steep as mine, and partly because there were a lot of cuts to be made because of where the dormers transition into the main roof. Also, being so steep and having dormers makes for a very large roof area. I'm very happy to have this major step completed. I've been working almost every day for a couple weeks, with only 1.5 days lost to rain in freezing temperatures and snow. The last couple days have been sunny and warm (all the way up into the lower 40s!) and I had some really great help from Matthias for getting the roof done. Also, big shout-out to the Burns brothers, Paul and Nathan, who both gave me tips this week that literally took days off the shingling job.

Next up, I'll be wrapping the house with a Tyvek type material and hanging windows and doors. Then I'll clean up, return borrowed tools, move all my junk (cabinets, stove, dishes, etc.) into my cabin and head home for the winter. I'm taking my cue from the migrating birds and planning to head south. Luckily for me though, if I do get held up, there isn't an open season on Jon Wheelers.

Here it is, as it looked at the end of the workday today.


Matthias was called out of town unexpectedly, so I hired a guy through a Craigslist ad to help me for the day. He lives in Bagley, MN but when he saw my license plate he told me he's from California too. He grew up in a place north of San Francisco called Santa Rosa. And he used to live in Occidental. Weeeiird. He did a good job, and I have another new helper lined up for tomorrow who I hope will do great too. Here is a nice close up of the roof. The color looks a bit different in photograph than real life. Here the contrasting colors stand out more than in person, but I like both and you get a pretty good idea what it all looks like.

Here is that promised picture of my chimney. It stands about two and a half feet above the ridge line. I know it just looks like a pipe sticking up, but it was a lot of work and a couple buckets full of money. I'm really glad it's done now because I think retrofitting it later would have been nightmarish.

The snow didn't stick much, but it sure made for some intolerable working weather. Fortunately, I shingled the north side first and had it done before the snow came. A little snow stayed on the north side of my roof for a full day after the sun came out.

The other day I went to get a couple boards off a pile inside my house, and I found a very large family of these little guests. They look similar to ladybugs, but are multi-colored Asian lady beetles, introduced to the southeastern U.S. by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the early 1980s as a predator against aphids which were attacking pecan trees. Research by Michigan State University claims, "According to USDA scientists, they were unsuccessful in their attempt to establish the beetle. However, in 1988 an established population was discovered in Louisiana, near New Orleans. The multi-colored Asian lady beetle was first officially reported in Michigan in 1994," and presumably Minnesota around the same period. (http://www.ipm.msu.edu/beetleFAQ.htm) Here is my evidence that the USDA experiment was "successful."

Dig the progress on the octagon cabin!!! I hope to see all my leftover shingles on here soon. I went over today to drop off the roofing nail gun for the Harpers to borrow to do their roof. Seeing their progress, I was thinking, I should have built a cabin around this size; perfect for one or two people. But really, I'm going to be so pleased with having all the extras like a kitchen and bathroom, etc. And all my work will add lots of value personally and financially even though it will be a long time before I am totally done.



Anecdote for the day in standard "good news, bad news," format. First the bad news: A few days ago, I was installing tar paper on my roof in the rain. I was working on the north side with my head about level with the peak of the roof. I had my left foot on some tar paper on the dormer roof and my right foot on the edge of a 2x4 nailed to the main roof, my body straddling the valley (where the dormer roof meets the main roof). I had sheet metal nailed in the valley with no shingles on it. The metal is designed to shed water, so it was mighty slick when my right foot slipped off the 2x4 as I strained to one side to get some staples through the tar paper. The movement of my foot one inch was in the same instant my entire body rocketed down the surface of the roof with a squeak and a thud. So, the good news is I'm here to tell the tale. But it's even better news than that; my safety harness, rope, and anchor system all worked flawlessly! I slid about 8 feet before my fall was arrested, but that's only because I hadn't cinched my safety device all the way up. I was completely uninjured and also happy to find that my natural reflexes were functioning superbly. When I came to rest on my belly, I found that my left hand was instinctively clinched tightly to the rope in front of me and my right hand had grabbed onto a board nailed to the roof while simultaneously still clamping onto the stapler. Before returning to the task at hand, I rested for a few moments as I marveled at how my heart rate had gone from moderate to very fast and thumpy in an instant. Thanks Dad for the safety rope suggestion, it's good to be alive! Now I'll turn in for the night with high hopes of getting in a window or two tomorrow.