Let the sun shine in!

Two very long weeks later and the roof is nearly complete. Last week my annual conference gave me the opportunity to spend a couple nights away from the construction and nearly everything in the house wrapped in plastic. This week, no such luck, which was doubly unfortunate given I came down with a cold and wanted nothing more than to spend a day in bed, sleeping, napping, drinking tea and relaxing. Not possible with the house overrun from 8am until nearly 5p every day.

On the upside, significant progress was made and we have what appears to be a much superior roof to the both the original 1950s which was basically just tar paper, tar and gravel over the ceiling boards, and the 1970's version which included about 2-inches of insulation. This version has closer to 6 inches of insulation or more covered with some kind of particle board, that the roofing paper is then layered over. That's bolted down and then the final layer goes on top of that which involves some serious looking flame-thrower devices. No more gravel. The roofing material is very rough and similar in color to the original tar and gravel roof, but with the added benefit of no gravel getting in the rain gutters. We're not actually sure what the purpose of the gravel was to begin with. Someone told us a long time ago it was for water displacement, which sort of makes sense, but when Dave mentioned it to these roofers, the guy laughed. Any ideas?

Along with the new roof, they installed 4 new skylights - one in the little bathroom and 3 non-opening ones down the hallway. They installed these with steel plates across the roof beams so they wouldn't sag like the one in our master bath. They also took that one out and also put steal beams in that so the ceiling isn't sagging any more. So good to have things coming along.

Check it out.