Progress...

The carpenters spent three days here at the beginning of last week. They replaced a lot of trim, rebuilt the boxes at the points where our roof-lines meet, placed gable-end vents in our attic (to help ventilate to reduce our winter ice problems), and placed steel plates on the back-side of our roof-line timbers to undo the sagging that was starting.

The roofers were here Monday and Tuesday. They completely stripped and re-shingled most of the house in 12 hours. It was amazing how quickly they got it all done.

The siding guys came by today. They aren't moving quite as fast as the roofers (although there are only two siding guys as opposed to 10 roofers). I think it's looking quite nice thus far.

I'm quite happy to see the old TV antenna and lightning rods gone. I questioned the removal of the lightning rods at first, but the guy pointed out that one wasn't grounded to anything, and the other was grounded using a very tiny 24 gauge copper wire (bad news for that high of voltage).

Roof Project!

We are starting our roof replacement project. We took a few bids, and decided to not go with the lowest bidder. I think that was a good plan.

The work on deck is:
- Replace shingles, flashing, vents, etc.
- Fix all the fascia that is rotten and straighten out the roof-lines on the dormers
- Rebuild the boxes where the different roof lines meet - they are deteriorating
- Re-side the dormers and the three-season porch with proper siding

It'll probably take a couple weeks to do all the work.

Here are some "before" pictures. Please note the saggy trim, not-so-awesome tin patch job on one of the roof-line timbers, and the curling shingles in some areas. I've also got my eye on the TV antenna (the cable has been cut in the basement, so we couldn't even use it if we wanted to!).