This Old House #12: Baby, its COLD outside!

So the thermometer this morning said -12. Pretty, but YUCK.























Interestingly enough- the shop is STILL sitting at about 32 degrees. Havent lit the fire in there in like 2 weeks...



It was so cold that even our two kitties, who normally won't get within 10 feet of each other, decided to let past feuds lie for the moment...



The outside temps mean the upstairs temps get a little low. Started checking things with the infrared gun. The one storage room upstairs with the door closed was a*little* chilly.



I musta not been naughty enough for Santa, so I had to have a friend give me a bucket of coal to try out in the stove.



Didn't take much to get it going,



Threw in a couple of scoops of coal and viola!

HEAT!



Stove works great with coal, which I guess isn't surprising since that's what it was designed for... Going to pick up a few buckets of free coal tomorrow. We'll see how well it works over this week while we're home.

This Old House #11: Thanksgiving and Dining Rooms.

What, y'all thought I gave up? Spent a portion of Thanksgiving break sucking up leaves...



Then the snow hit, and it got COLD.











Then we had a poop-load of people over for Thanksgiving dinner...







And the day after Thanksgiving, my wife decided to enlist everyone that stuck around in ripping the dining room to shreds. Something along these lines:



That left me to the simple task of peeling the wallpaper strip off the ceiling, cause, you know, I'm the tall one.







I scraped, I rolled, I sprayed, I sanded, I tired everything under the sun and that stuff DID NOT want to come off... Finally what ended up working sorta okay was the iron- yup, I spent the first three hours trying things out, and the last 2 hours holding that iron over my head while standing on a ladder, heating the strip up and scraping it off an inch at a time. Barf.

Moving on. Starting to look pretty good! One problem- never ask an "artist" to help you "paint".





Alas, it was in an awkward spot and had that green showing from behind so it got painted over.

Some of the help.

This Old House #9- More on the roof.

Well, after several conversations with several different people including the company that sold it to me, we picked a course of action and got it (mostly) done last Saturday. I'm REALLY running out of time, and the weather is NOT cooperating this week. Was hoping to have the little bits finished off but here's where I'm at so far...

Got all the shingles shoved off in the evenings over the week.






Got back from camping with the scouts around 10:30 and the help showed up at 11:00. Cleaned the roof up a bit, got rid of missed nails, etc. Restacked the tin so it was all straight and even and pre-drilled holes through the whole stack. Got the water / ice barrier laid down around the edges, and started hoisting chunks of metal. We ran a string at the bottom, tacked the first 5 sheets together but not to the roof, got it all square, then started screwing 'em down.



I was a little perturbed that my the first couple of sheets got some nice scratches in them as they were pulled off the pile, but no complaints as the help was, er, VERY affordable... :) Got a process in place for pulling sheets and all was good.

The help!





Trimming up the ends. Turns out one side was 4" SHORTER than the other. Thank goodness I measured the long side!



Most of the tin down. Still have a little sliver on each side at the outside edge, the ridge cap, and the house flashing to put down. Oh, and the vents...







By this time I was beat and had other things that needed to get done too. I finally looked at the forecast later that evening, and it SUCKED. Decided to tack the ridgecap on real quick- spent an hour looking for the dang nut driver and finally had to go buy a new one. Got it tacked on though, and good thing because its been raining and SNOWING this week. Haven't dared get back up there when its wet to finish the last couple of pieces off...



And thats where it still sits. Hoping to get up there tomorrow. It's gotta be done this weekend no matter what unfortunately.

This Old House #8: Rip Roarin Roofin.

Running out of time to get the roof done before the ins. cancels my policy, so here goes... Few before pics.



















And here's whats going back on it.


Spent the day ripping the old roof off.



But mad sure to stay hydrated...



Even had a little help.



Didn't even need to use a ladder. NEW that door would come in handy! Wife looked at me a little weird though as I walked through the house wearing the backpack blower. Maybe I should have had it running?



Got 'er all ripped off except for the edges under the piles of shingles. Waiting for the dumptruck to show up at this point.

The dumptruck. Well, this was exciting. Borrowed it from the teacher across the hall- let me use it free of charge for helping him bleed the brakes. Brakes are still marginal at best, and as I was pulling out of his yard he told me to go slow over any bumps or the front end will start to death wobble. Great. 11 miles to go...

Made it home fine though. Great old rig!



Got the roof all swept off, parked the truck under an eave, and thats it until Monday.



 
We picked a great day for doing this, no wind and lower temps made it nice work. We are replacing the old metal / shingle roof with all metal, black so it kinda matches the rest of the house which is shingled. Don't have the time or the money at the moment to do the carport with shingles to match the house, but it's in the back so we'll be the only ones who ever see it and it won't bother me that much.

Have the rest of the week to finish pushing the shingles in and strip whats under the piles.  Sounds like I have some help showing up Saturday to lift the metal sheets up on the roof and tack them in place.