Shingling and Mingling

There's no reason I used the word "mingling" in the title...it's just one of the only words I could think of that rhymed with "shingling".

If you hadn't guessed it, this post is about the agonizing task of shingling.  This is definitely one of those jobs that you are so grateful for the people that do this for a living...because it is positively terrible.  If this roof were any bigger, I would have quit before we were done.  But now I know more about tin shingles, D-channel, drip cap, snow and ice, and laminate shingles (as opposed to 3-tab) than I ever needed to know.

Saturday afternoon, we shingled the first fourth of the roof with my dad so we had a slight idea of what the process involved.  And again, I was reminded how lucky we are to have someone in our family that can literally do anything related to construction...thanks dad.

The plan was to shingle the big easy side on Sunday.  And by "big easy side" i mean time consuming and monotonous.  Sunday morning rolled around and Brent and I did everything we could do to prep until my day's expected arrival at 9:30am.  9:45 rolled around and we got the dreaded phone call...no, there hadn't been a terrible accident...WORSE...he wasn't coming until around noon.  

Brent and I exchanged a panicked glance, we couldn't get this party started without dad!  We had literally no clue what was going on!  But we did what any good DIY'er would do, we tricked ourselves into thinking we could do it just as we'll as a professional could.  I don't have any pictures of this because we were to busy figuring out what the heck we were doing.  As frustrating as that can be, I think we both secretly enjoy digging in and really figuring out how to tackle new things together.  Yes, patience can ride thin, but mostly it tends to go well.

We did a decent job getting the snow and ice layer put down, along with the drip cap and d-channel.  Then came the starter course.  Easy peasy.  Then first three rows of shingles were moving along smoothly until it was time to move up higher onto the toe kicks.  Brent is afraid of heights, so this one was gonna be all me.  Which is fine, but it was going to slow things down with only one person laying shingles.  Then our white (haired) knight showed up, Brent's dad.  What a lifesaver!!!  This must have given Brent the extra courage he needed because before I knew it he was on the roof, shingling LIKE A BOSS!  So Brent and I put down shingles while Bob handed them to us and cut them to fit on the ends.  

So we worked and worked and worked.  I know those power lines looks shockingly close to my head...don't worry...they really are shockingly close, except they are cable TV lines according to my dad.  Free cable, anyone?

Emma and Owen kept themselves busy all day without the help of the tv or iPad, which is good and bad news.  They got married in the backyard, which ate up a half hour.  Other than that, I have no idea what they did, but they survived the day and so did we.  When we came down off the roof for the day, we were more than a little shocked at the state of the interior of our house, looks like they got every single toy out.  

We ran out of shingles with one course to go - that's how it always works, right?!

And the last unfortunate part of this dreaded day was that I had managed to lose 2 pairs of my work jeans throughout the week.  This left me with only a pair of denim shorts to work in.  So if anyone wants to come over and pull asphalt out of my shins and knees with a tweezer, its on a first come, first served basis.  And if you happen to have/see my missing pants, please let me know.

Here's an interior shot.