House Project Day Two

Between a rainy forecast (of which we had only sprinkles) and it's being the day before a holiday, the crew did not come to work today. They cleaned up pretty well yesterday and wrapped everything in tar paper, so I was not surprised to not see them. Their next major project sure doesn't need to be done just before rain, because next they will be digging out the foundation for the porch extension.

I didn't post pics of the work from Day two. I hope these pictures will give you a better idea of what they've done to the roof. The first pics I posted of the house were really to give an idea of all the mess everywhere, more than to show the roof itself. It's not a drastic looking change on the back of the house in pictures, but it looks amazingly different when you're up close to it...

Where the siding looks black is how much the roof was raised. That's new boards covered in tar paper. The second picture is standing a little further back. If I had to guess, I'd say there's about a foot difference between the slope of the new boards as opposed to the old roof. It was very nearly flat and dipped in places. Now there's a nice clean line straight from the peak down the back.

It's exceptionally difficult to take pictures of the roof, actually. Hard to get enough distance to see what's been done and hard to get close enough to show a little detail. But I can tell you when you're standing next to it, it looks fantastic!

The picture of the stoop/steps does not come close to doing it justice. The steps really look great, and dress up the entire patio area. Our outdoor living spaces - this side porch and the new covered front porch - are really going to add value to the house!

And finally, my post would not be complete without a picture of the "Auburn Throne" sitting just outside our fence in the front yard. What Alabama home would be complete without the old outhouse?


On a side note, we had a bit of bad luck hit today (just pre-holidays of course). Geoff's dad's van, which we've been borrowing temporarily to replace Geoff's van, is officially dead. Not only do we not have enough to put the metal roof on the house like we wanted, we also don't really have what we need to take care of his transportation situation.


For the last year or so, his van has been in our back yard in need of a transmission/motor/something or other that costs a lot. Also for the past year, a friend has been tinkering on his motorcycle (still not done). So he's been driving the old VW van that finally is kaputz. I hate to take out ANOTHER loan, since we're already paying on something for all of this construction, but it would figure that while we're working on this, we'd end up with another major expense. Such is life!