Tag Archives: roof
Weekend Update: Grass, our roof & a screw in a tire
Next weekend marks the cutoff point when new home projects are put aside and we move into full wedding mode. Scary yes, but also a little exciting. We have a lot of DIY projects planned.
I am girl who loves a deadline so I had a big hopes to squash a few projects over my last home project weekend for the next few months. Friday night I organized my file cabinet prepping for the financial merge with Nate. It’s crazy to think this will be the last year I file my taxes alone.
On Saturday, I decided to work on our patchy lawns. Last year by midsummer most of the grass was dead and I’d like to try to avoid that happening again. Since the weather has been unbelievable lately I though it would be a good time to experiment with a little grass seed before the weather gets too hot.
I raked up all the dead grass and debris while loosening about 3-4 inches of top soil. Then I sprinkled the Sun & Shade Mix over the soil and lightly raked it in. Fingers crossed this works. I’ll be watering it daily to keep the seed and soil moist until I start seeing seedlings emerge and they get established.
I also took some new photos of our open ceiling. Yep folks, we have mold again. I’ll be zapping that will a little bleach later today.
We’ve had nothing but bad luck finding the right roofing or general contractor to replace the roof. Either they never get our calls returned, they don’t have experience with flat roofs or after we meet we get a “sorry we cannot send you a quote because x, y or z” email. It sucks. The only silver lining is besides the rainy day drips and mold situation, the roof hasn’t caused too many issues for us. We are very thankful we live in such a temperate climate. Currently, we are looking into another general contractor, but again this project may be pushed off until after June unfortunately.
Then Sunday happened. The day turned out to be all about our used 2001 Honda Civic that came with “better than the standard, but not fancy” rims.
We must have drove through a construction site on our way home Saturday night because Sunday morning we had a very flat tire from a nail still wedged into the rubber.
I hate driving on a spare, so the plan was to get the tire changed out and head directly to get it replaced. If only it was that easy. My roadside assistance sent a tow truck out to change the tire for me but the driver couldn’t get my stupid rims off. He didn’t have the right socket to remove them. After inflating the tire, he advised me to drive directly to the tire store before it went flat.
Not the safest prospect, but Nate and I took the risk and only made it down the street to a gas station before the tire went flat again. The nail that pierced the hole had fallen out and the hole was too large to drive with. Plus the placement of the hole, made it impossible to use a tire patch.
Luckily, a guy at the gas station suggested we use a screw to plug the hole. Once the screw was in, we inflated the tire and it held until we got to the tire store. Thank you random gas station guy!
We ended up buying a whole new set of tires and then spent the remainder of the afternoon waiting for them to be installed. Luckily, there was a great pizzeria nearby with amazing food and a great beer selection (have you tried a Belgium sour beer yet? so good.). So we passed the time with a little food, drink and the NCAA basketball Tournament.
Of course, the rims gave the tire installers some trouble as well, but it all worked out in the end. I hate those rims.
In the end, the tire adventure was a little time-consuming, but now we have lovely new tires that should last us years.
So even though I didn’t get to reseed the front lawn on Sunday, I learned some valuable lessons. 1) It pays off to keep a couple random screws and tools in your vehicle for Macgyver-like maneuvers AND 2) if you have to wait for service, make sure you pick a place with a decent bar or eatery nearby.
Three more drips
Rainy weather came in two nights ago and with it my worry about how our roof will do this winter.
Our great room is already dripping like a sieve and just this morning I found three new drips in the front room.
Seeing them almost sent me to tears. This whole roof issue is so stressful.
I am sure some people think we are crazy to have our great room ceiling open to the rafters for over a year, but the decision on how to fix the roof became a bigger project then Nate and I realized. We had hoped we could just patch it, but the more we’ve researched and talked to experts it became apparent the whole roof needed to go.
Over the last year, we’ve been inching closer and closer to a final solution. I’ve paired down our journey to four main questions.
Should we keep the original roof line or pitch it?
This dilemma was the absolute hardest for me to wrap my head around. It took me months with plenty of discussion with family and friends to go with my gut and stick with the original roof line. A pitched roof would have given us more storage, but for me the mid-century modern house won out.
Should we improve other issues at the same time?
The list of “other issues” is actually quite long for us. With all our pipes running on the roof and no easy access to our rafters because of our plank ceiling, we have a lot of potential updates including:
- Insulate the rafters
- Update our electrical
- Rework our water and gas pipes so they run more efficiently
- Insulate the new plumbing
- Run gas pipes to the master bathroom and fireplace
- Install tank-less hot water heater(s)
- Prep the ceiling for our kitchen remodel by installing new range exhaust system
Every added project costs more money so we will have to do as much as we can. Most likely are the insulation, plumbing and electrical improvements.
What materials should we use?
I plan to go into some detail about the options once we make a decision. We’ve talked to roofers, contractors and vendors with experience with commercial roofing.
What can we afford?
Currently we are waiting for our last bid to come in. Once we get that, we will be working on financing and making our final decision. With so many moving pieces, I’m a little worried about final cost. This isn’t a project we can do in phases and it’s going to completely disrupt the house (and cats). I’d love to push this off for a year or two, but the drips in the ceiling are telling me otherwise.
Ceiling Removal: Part Two
Last weekend we switched gears from the Prison Bath Remodel (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) to our neglected Great Room Ceiling. You may recall that we ripped out half of it last September when we started seeing evidence of some water damage.
Once we got all the wet insulation down we were still uncertain the cause and decided to leave the rafters exposed until we could determine the next step. Given our mild Californian winters we were able to do this, but it was still really, really cold in there at night. I don’t recommend trying this anywhere it gets below 30 degrees at night.
Five months later and we are still a little perplexed on what we are going to do with the roof. At this point, we can’t afford a new roof without financing it. We haven’t been able to find a roofer that is interested in patching our roof because it’s really difficult to find the problem area on a flat roof like ours. Luckily, we have noticed only a little moisture coming through during rain storms. In fact it may actually be due to sitting water which is something we can monitor until we replace the roof.
With Nate on Spring Break this week, we decided to at least get the whole ceiling off and check for more leaks.
It was a really rainy Saturday, so Nate got the great room ready for demo on Sunday. All the furniture was moved to the back of the room.
We sealed the area, doors and vents with plastic sheets and painters tape to keep the mess to a minimal. On Sunday, we opened our double sliders and window to have as much ventilation as possible.
Nate started by cutting the particle board into sections with our borrowed reciprocating saw. Then he pulled each section down with as much of the insulation batting intact as possible.
I was the cleanup crew.
I kept the mess to a minimum and disposed of all the old insulation, gravel and board pieces as he removed them. And yes, that’s my new Shop Vac which I absolutely love.
It went pretty smoothly. The insulation on this side of the room was not wet like the other side which made the process go quickly.
Plus, it means we only have to worry about leaks on one side of the room which is super awesome news.
Once all the sections were down, we cleaned the walls and floors well before moving the furniture back. Total project took about 3-4 hours.
A couple other things to note.
Paper Wasps
When we removed the paneling along the outside wall, we found about a dozen small paper wasp nests.
Seeing them made me a little anxious. You know how I feel about wasps. Luckily the nests were old and did not look like they had been used in quite sometime. Phew.
“At least I am wearing shoes”
Pulling out insulation is messy work. Nate wore a better outfit than last time. He even had shoes and long sleeves on, but still got covered in insulation and dirt. Don’t worry he was wearing safety google and a ventilation mask as he worked.
I need to buy him some real work gloves and safety goggles. The standard leather work gloves didn’t have enough mobility to use the saw so he ended up not wearing anything. Also, my chemistry goggles from college just aren’t cutting it anymore. Anyone have some recommendations?
Beam down
Speaking of safety concerns, I got a big bump on my head when a heavy molding board fell on my head. Nate was taking it off and it unexpectedness dropped before he removed all the nails. Yes, I shouldn’t have been under it. Yes, Nate should have warned me. All in all though, we were both glad I wasn’t hurt that bad. And my hair covers the bump.
So that’s our weekend. How was yours? We have a bunch more projects planned this week. In fact we’ve been doing so many things around the house, I have posts already written and queued to post all week. Watch out. I can only hope being this organized becomes habit.
