The State of Things

The roof tile went up without a glitch, naturally. The roofer's father was a roofer and his son is a roofer. This was easy, pleasant and over with in no time.

I was having some problems with the windows I'd ordered from Home Depot. The small awning windows for the east wall did not come in right. Neither did the transom window. I think that the loft window crank was broken on arrival and J. could not figure out how to install the twin window (for which you see the gaping hole in the above picture). The result of all this was that I had to wait on installing four or five of the windows. I really forget the exact sequence of events but ultimately, when the windows were all properly accounted for and installed, Home Depot credited me for 4, and the window manufacturer refunded my money for 2. So, of 13 windows, 6 were no charge. It was a pain, but funny by the end of it all and how could I complain? What a deal!

J. still had about a day's worth of work to finish. In fact, I think that it would have taken him more than one day. But it was important stuff, like the knee walls in the loft some bracing in the trusses, a ladder for the loft and the back shed door and window. Later, I realized that he had not made any threshold support before (or after) installing the front entry doors. The framing had to be brought to an end point in order to have the building inspector sign off. In my attempt to maintain decent neighborly relations, my excuse for bringing this phase to a close was financial. But I was counting the hours.

Still singing

Our Mockingbird continued to serenade us which was good because things were getting tense with J. Very tense.

When J. swore at me in no uncertain terms in the middle of Home Depot because I asked him to move his truck to the contractor's entrance, I thought, well, I will have to fire him as soon as this phase is complete because this is definitely not acceptable. It all started falling apart after the drinking on the roof business. Right there, I lost my authority. Then J. invited over a neighbor I didn't recognize to visit while he worked. The visitor parked his large truck in my drive, blocking the termite man and I had to ask him to leave. You would have thought I'd seriously insulted his mother. I was running on way too much caffeine and J. was running on too much alcohol. Tension was building and an explosion was imminent.

Tar paper

Finally, the sun appeared and while the roofers laid the tar paper, J. constructed the back shed.

Very quickly. Unfortunately, some of the roof plywood warped from the rain. Not the end of the world though it bothered me a lot at the time. Jim Smith, roofer extraordinaire who I was so very fortunate to find, told me horror stories of multi-million dollar homes that were not squared, had roofs that leaked, etc. ad nauseum. I think I forgot to mention that the foundation slab was not squared and that J. corrected that in the south west corner of the framing.

Closing up

Big storm's a'comin...

The last sky light.

Closing up.

Mounting the fascia. Also, you can see the back of the building without the shed.
The tar paper was supposed to go up on the roof at this stage but J. pulled everyone off the job. Then it rained.

Roof with a view

I scrambled up to the new loft level to take some shots before the rafters were enclosed. Above is looking North.

Northeast


East


South


West

and we don't have to look Northwest into the neighbor's yard!

My job

At this stage, mine was a small job — sanding, priming and painting the fascia. It was critical for me to participate in whatever manner I could so that I could contribute, learn and keep an eye on things. Before too long, I would not be asking permission to participate.