The Project To Top Them All

I am a weekend warrior, a do it yourselfer and have never met a project I didn't like.  My last big project, building a titled shower out of our bath only master bath kept me off major projects for a few years.  This latest project may keep me off them for a decade.

My detached garage has been leaking for some time.  I recently found that it was leaking much worse that I thought and some of the wood was terribly warped.  I thought it was be a good weekend project.  How hard could it be?  Tear off the old stuff, replace the bad plywood, roll out tar paper and put down new shingles.

Unfortunately, it's horrible bad.  My neighbor and I both thought it would be a fun, learning project and we both now know we definitely learned one valuable lesson.  That lesson is that we never want to roof again.  For starters, a very mild week ended in the 90s.  That's much hotter on a roof. 

Day one was tear off day.  That was a lot of work.  The roof was put on in the days when felt paper was held in place with roofing nails.  That made tear off a lot tougher.

Yesterday was re-wood, tar paper and first two rows of shingles.  It went okay but the heat was worse than the previous day.

I took today off and continued.  It was not as hot when the clouds rolled in but when it was out, the heat was unbearable.  Storms were in the forecast.  After several rows of shingles, I decided to move the shingle bundles to the roof to hold a tarp in place.  I got the tools off the roof just before the rain started. 

Unfortunately, I couldn't get the tarp up fast enough so the rain hit the ceiling.  My research says that tar paper can get wet and will flatten out when it dries off.  I will be placing the tarp down tomorrow before more forcasted storms on Wednesday and Thursday. 

So my Labor Day weekend will now consist of a lot of labor and hopefully the completion of the biggest home improvement project of my life.