Sometimes, there are just some jobs that NEED to be done. They require a lot of hard work, endurance, strength, knowledge, wisdom and skill. Most of these things also require...MONEY! Lots of money. Roofing is one of those things. This project cost 700 dollars. To be fair though 200 of that was spent on new Ryobi cordless tools. I'm just guessing that this job would have cost 2000 dollars if a contractor were used. No new tools, either. So, there you go. Lesson One: Ralph is CHEAP and HANDY! And, he has new cordless tools. Bravo!

Here is a picture of the roof that needed replacing. It is just a 16 x 22 addition to a 100 year old brick house. Inside there is the kitchen and bathroom. At this point, July 2004, that tree in the picture had to come down. It was swaying about a foot in the wind and did not look healthy. This is the only picture I could find of the roof before the reconstruction.

Here is the kitchen ceiling. That missing tile had fallen in from the rain and the other tiles were damaged also. Sometimes when it rained a big gusher of water would come peeing down from the ceiling. It was very uncool!

I guess if I needed a mafia name, I'd want to be called Ralphie Two-Sheds. Same thing for an Indian name. Many moons passed over the tee-pee of Ralphie Two-Sheds before the roof was fixed. I put a roof on the right shed nearly two years ago. That roof only cost about $450. It was so decrepit that it had to be removed to the wallboards and totally reconstructed. That was a fun roof to do because there was no real worry about the rain. There was not much of anything in that shed to get damaaged by the wet. I did a bang-up job there. Again, take that job to a contractor and he'd charge $1500?...or more?...and you wouldn't get any new tools, either!

Here is another roof I built. Previous to this, there was a tarp on the frame of the carport but every year and a half, the wind, sun, rain and snow would tear the tarp to pieces. Last time that happened I beefed up the framing and put a real roof over that sweet LeBaron Convertible. That roofing material is Ondura. It is like compressed and treated cardboard, basically. It is very easy to work with, safe and easy to cut and very light. It is also quite fragile, relatively expensive and hard to apply squarely. Ondura has its advantages but it certainly is not the right material for most jobs. It must be installed with proprietary and overly expensive custom Ondura nails. This roof cost about $350 and $70 of that was Ondura nails.

There is the roof on day one, about an hour into the demolition. This job will be so easy that I will be able to watch TV while I work. Yeah! Right! Too bright to see...Too loud to hear!

The tar paper was installed with a 37" overlap. That still didn't stop the rain in the kitchen. I actually roofed this previously. It was right after I bought this house. I was 12 years younger then and didn't really know as much as I should have about things. I did an excellent job of papering and applying shingles but I did not take into account the crappy shape of the decking. I was in a hurry to get done so I could play Super Mario RPG and Super Metroid on SNES. Ah! Wasted youth!

Under that excellent tar paper job lies many crappy, rotten 10 inch planks. Some of the gaps were especially bad. This is directly over the leak in the kitchen. At least I did replace the worst of the planks. Sheesh! Leave me alone! I'm trying to get 100 on all the levels in Super Mario Brothers 2: Yoshi's Island so I can play the bonus levels and finish it with 100%.

This beam was under the part of the roof that always felt spongy when you stepped on it. Now we know why! That was it for the first day of the build. My wonderful wife and I worked 8 hours solid to get the roof cleaned off down to the rafters. That was on a Sunday. It was also festival week in town and the church next door had many people around this whole week to cook their Chicken and Dumplings. I have some issues about the festival week our town has. That is an entirely other article, though. But allow me to just quickly mention, even thought the booths are all for charity, there is still a tremendous amount of cash flooding out of the pockets of the hard-working everyday family. Millions, I am sure. That displacement of cash seems much like fleecing of sheep. Colonel Grifter's Patented Snake-Oil and Traveling Revivalry Extravaganza!

There is a crappy falling apart ceiling below the crappy falling apart roof. I should have knocked all of that down and cleaned it all out and insulated with inch thick styrofoam sheeting. It was gonna rain real soon, though. Besides I can always clean that out from underneath-inside and I'm almost to finish Resident Evil 4 on Nintendo GameCube so I don't have time. After the demolition down to the rafters I had to use the new sheathing to get around up there on the roof. I started from one side and replaced each of the rafters one by one. That was on the second day. The replacement of those 14 rafters took two days and over 20 hours of dirty back-breaking labor.

That is the pile of old planking and a few of the rafters. My daughter and I picked up over 200 nails with our magic magnet stick. At a nickel a nail, she made out well for her efforts. CASH!!!

New Wood in the Morning! That ought to be worth $200 dollars.

This is Wednesday morning. I didn't get any pictures Tuesday. It was a lot of hard work to put those new rafters up there and I didn't have any time for cameras.

The fresh rafters sure did look good though. It made me feel much better about being up there and working, also.

Here is the roof Thursday morning after a twelve hour day, Wednesday. Very straight and even. Wow! I am so...tired! Up by the window are two $20 dollar tarps. I had one already, and then we bought a second one because it was supposed to rain that night. We spent on the tarp and took the time to secure it to the new roof for the night. Of course, it didn't rain that night! Lucky thing we went to all that trouble to use those tarps. BLAST IT ALL! Also notice the special tape on the seams of the sheathing.

That stuff is Protecto-Wrap. He sounds like some prophylactic superhero. This looks like a job for Protecto-Wrap! It comes in a big 50 foot roll and is about four inches wide. It has a peel-away backing that uncovers some seriously sticky, black stuff. Protecto-Wrap is GREAT! FANTASTIC! I have nothing but excellent feelings for the product. It is easy to work with. It is very clean. It sticks and seals and...WOW! What a GREAT product! I heartily recommend this stuff for all your sealing needs. If you are a truly sick perv take a roll of this to your dominatrix. You'll be so exquisitely sorry you did.

Let us take a moment to reflect on the usefulness of this tool and feel true regret that it was snapped away from us in its prime. This is truly sadness. I'm sure you respectable construction people will know what I'm saying here. It SUX when your pilot drill snaps!

Here's a view of the fresh tar paper. 37 inch overlap, of course.

This is a picture from Friday morning. Thrusday was twelve hours of nail-pounding and shingle-cutting topped off with a bloody-thumb. There were 33 rows of seven shingles. Each shingle takes 6 nails. Each nail took at least 4 swings of my 23 dollar hammer. That is 231 shingles, 1386 nails and 5544 swings of that 23 dollar hammer. Approximately, of course!. I took Friday off. I played some Medal of Honor. I went out to eat. I watched TV, drank beer and went to bed early.

Rolover this image to see the most disappointing part of this build. The NEW roof looks exactly like the old roof. How anti-climactic! After 80 hours of labor-intensive, dirty, back-breaking work I was right back to where I started. The more things change, the more they stay the same. What goes around, comes around. A penny shaved is a penny burned. A bird in the hand, saves nine. All good things come to those on the other side of the fence. Out of sight, gone tomorrow. Dead men eat no snails. I could go on and on...and I often do...but you get the idea. Here's hoping the big difference with this roof over the old roof is that this one won't leak into the kitchen and destroy the new ceiling tiles. Have you noticed how expensive ceiling tiles are? You would think they were made out of rib-eye steak or something. And what's the deal with airline food...?