The Big Roofing Weekend: July 24-27

This was the big weekend; we had many projects, a lot of work, and recruited a lot of people to help out.

The main project was to remove the existing shingles, remove the existing chimney and put new shingles and vent cap on.

Ben worked by himself during the day Wed and Thursday with help from my brother Ron, and my cusin Mike in the evenings. A friend of ours, Nick, did come help Thursday morning as well. Between Wednesday and Thursday they were able to remove a little over half of the shingles and put rolled roofing on to protect the house from the elements.

Friday Ron and his roomate Dave came and helped Ben all day with others comming in the evening to help finish the task of removing the remaining shingles and paper the other half of the house.


(Here is Ben picking up the shingles to carry to a 20 yard dumpster.)

Saturday everyone showed up to help, on the roof (Ben, Dad, my brother Ron, our friends Nick and Rick, my cusin Mike, and Ben's cusin Dan) and they shingled nearly 2/3 to 3/4 of the roof that day.


(Rick, Ben and Dad getting ready to put more shingles on.)

On Suday, they finished the shingling and spent the rest of the day putting the caps on.


(This is my Dad putting the cap pieces on.)

(This is my brother cutting the cap pieces. We saved a bunch of $ by cutting our own rather than buying the matching cap materials)



(Here is the house with new shingles and a little hedge triming)

In order to feed our work crew Ben and I bought a 100 lb pig and had our friend Bob roast it for us. We asked for others to pitch in with a dish to pass and we had a great dinner before the guys went back on the roof.



We also had our friends Jack and Ryan show up Saturday morning and they hauled all of the drywall and panelling we had torn down in the basement out to the dumpster and even swept up. They also put all of that carpet in too.

My best friend Cori and I tackled Priming the dark blue bedroom and hallway and even gave the kids brushes to help.



(Tyler, Jessie, Jasmine and Autumn pre-prime the wall, we rolled over it later)

Later Bree (my undergrade employee from work ) showed up and we even primmed the darker walls in the living room and dinning room.

That afternoon Cori started working on the kitchen/dinning room floor.


(Here Cori, and my cusin Elizabeth are hand scraping that carpet glue and backing off the floor.)

I later finished this on Sunday.

My Cusin Mike borrowed a tractor from friends of his that live just around the corner and we used it to get the shingles up to the roof.

(Mike on the Tractor)

Sunday he used the mower on it to mow that tall grass in the back of the yard and tried to remove the garbage/burn pile that was out there untill he desturbed a bumble bee nest and was chased out. He did push the brush pile to the back of the property so it isn't in the way anymore.



This was a very productive weekend for us. Everyone is tired and sore, so we will be taking Monday off from the house. Poor Mike works at a lumber yard and will be moving 120 bundles of shingles this morning, despite all the shingles he moved this weekend, so he won't be getting much of a break.


Thank you so much to everyone that helped us this weekend, we could not have gotten it all done without you.

July 18-20 projects

Project one for this weekend was to create the half wall between the formal entry and the living room to open the space. The light switch was moved lower on the wall, an outlet was added to the exterior from this circuit, a box was put in for the outside light (was just atatched to the house before) and the wiring cleaned up a little.



We are a little concerned about the stability of the new half wall and so we plan to add a post to the open end at some point in the future.

Project two was to install the can lights throughout the house for better lighting as well as new switches and smoke detectors.

Here Ben is cutting the holes for the two 4" can lights that go above the kitchen sink

This is one of the can lights in the living room. We have not put the covers on yet as we still plan to paint the ceiling.

My brother finished my demolition project in the basement by removing all of the drywall ceiling and between Ron and Ben all of the tackstrip is finally up as well as the staples that were still in the two larger bedrooms.

While the guys worked on the electric, mom and I removed all of the doors, drawers, and hardware from the kitchen so it can be prepped for paint later.


I also primed the chair rail for Tylers bedroom and went to Lowes for new hardware for the kitchen cabinets, a shower can light cover, paint and some misc electrical parts we needed.

By the end of the weekend the lighting in the house was great. We are especially pleased with the lights in the hallway because it went from a dark tunnel to a bright and inviting space.

There are still some unfinished things to do as far as electric but it will now wait until after the roofing is done this weekend.

The Shock of Electric Costs

A trip to Lowes last night for electrical supplies caused Ben and I to re-evaluate the number of recessed lighting we want. I wouldn't budge on the light for the shower (a girl has to be able to see her legs to shave right)

As you can see the supplies are stacking up......now lets get on with the work.

The other jobs tackled since purchase

No not that kind of tackle Tyler!


We have been able to tackle quite a few things around the house in addition to the carpet removal and suppply purchasing I blogged previously.

• Ben was also able to clean out the gutters in preperation for roofing.
• Ben arranged for a dumpster to be delivered prior to roofing and started calling around to find helpers and equipment like shovels and nail guns.
• We cleaned up the tree branches that were down in the yard. I started scraping that black backing off the kitchen/dinning room floor and let me tell you that is hard work.
• I removed all nails and screws from the walls and spackled them to prep for paint.
• I removed all the tack board in the living room, hallway and Tylers bedroom as well as all of the staples that held down the carpet pads and vacumed.
• I started ripping out all the moldy paneling and foam board in the basement.
• Ben supervised and helped with the delivery from Lowes.
• We stocked the bathrooms with TP soap and paper towel for the work days ahead.
• Mom and dad delivered an apartment sized refrigerator I had picked up for free to use while we work and I had to clean it.
• We laid out a plan for the electric and made a material list
• Finally, we made plans to create a half wall in the living room where the wall currently separates it from the entry.

The big trip to Lowes

So Ben and Dad did some final measurments to make a material list for the roof.





Then Ben and I went to Lowes and bought all the roofing, new locks, our flooring, primer etc. They were so helpful and gave us 10% off our first purchase and delivered everything for only $30.00.

Goodbye nasty Carpet!

The work on the house started with some demo. That nasty, smelly carpet had to come out. Tyler enjoyed helping us rip it out and I was so happy to see that kitchen carpet come up. Unfortunatly the backing stayed glued in place and now we have to scrape that off.

SOLD!!!!

We finally closed 2 months after putting in an offer. We are so relieved to have that part over. Now on to the renovations to make our house a home.

:)

Trees Down

So we lost a few trees in the last storm. Luckily none of them fell on the house. We will be cutting them up to use for bon fires later. Also, some water came in the basement but it was such a bad storm that I heard that a lot of people had problems with their basements.

Closing was supposed to be Tuesday July 8 or we would loose the house and then Tuesday morning the seller told us they were not ready and now we close Thursday July 10.

Please Lord let this part be over. We need to get so much done on this house and we have lost so much time.