Mad adventures in shingling

Sometimes i do, agree, or even volunteer to something without really thinking it through. Kind of a 'knee jerk' reaction to the feeling of being needed. This was the case when i volunteered to help my friend AJ to replace the shingles on her shed after the HOA (the evil Nazis) sent her a lovely letter indicating their displeasure. Its not like I was going to get anything out of this other then a sore back and a possibility of major injury. But at least it did give me an excuse to buy a really nice tool belt. Every guy (and girl) should have a nice tool belt to do home improvement projects. "What you have a leaky sink? Let me get my tool belt!!!!"

Now truth be known i haven't done roofing in years, and then it was a metal roof not an asphalt shingle. 'But hell' I figured, 'how hard could it be.' And I probably know enough about what I doing to buff the rest. I mean it works for me professionally.

Roof requires three things to come together at the same time: good weather, materials, and cooperative workers. This took several weeks to get together. But after several false starts we finally got to start working. The shed was in pretty bad shape. But we had hammers and tool belts!!!

The roof stripped off easier then I had expected. And surprisingly enough the wood was in very good condition. Thank goodness for small miracles, no patching in plywood!!! One of the front molding beams was rotten (not load bearing) so we replaced all of them. Which turned out to a far easier fix then i was guessing, which of course made me very concerned, this was going far too well. Something bad was going to happen, very bad.

So a little tar paper and a nearly thrown out back trying to get the pack of shingles on to the roof, and we were off. And after awhile AJ was starting not to be so afraid to be up there ^_^. In fairly short time we were making noticeable progress and thanks to a very well placed tree we were in the shade almost the entire time. Which even though it was a very nice day (compared to what we have seen around here) made this adventure much more bearable.

And then there was the last full shingle. So why do i look like i am not done yet? That because there is a second little roof that needed attention that was not in the original request. But after looking at its poor state, I took pity on it and put it out of its misery. Now all the rot fears I had for the shed were materialized in this little utility closest. I wish i took some pictures of it before i patched together a new roof for it, but after some swearing and beating it with a large hammer, we were able to pull together a respectable little roof.

So all in all, project was a success and since its just a shed and no one is going to care if it leaks, the roof is perfect. So no broken bones, and only a few sore muscles, not bad, not bad at all.