Unroofing the Garage: Days 9 & 10

"That's the same photo as in the last post," you say. Well, you're right. Things look pretty much the same so I didn't take a new picture. What you can't see is that we've removed all of the nails from the roof. The nails that held in the tar paper, the 2 layers of shingles, and the roll roofing that was put on top of the shingles. So, yes, lots and lots of nails. We were able to pull nails for the few hours last week when it wasn't raining. On Wednesday morning, the only place that it was raining in the entire area was over our house. Go figure.

We also had a bit of excitement on one of those rainy days. See that tiny pile of lumber in front of the dumpster? Someone thought it was free for the taking, pulled his pickup in and took a few pieces. Not all of it, mind you, just a few pieces. Like he was trying to finish a project and was too lazy to drive the 2 miles to 84 Lumber. Since we live next door, we saw him leaving the yard, but didn't get the license plate number. It was less than $50 worth of supplies, but it was the principle of the thing. That and the loss of peace of mind - we've lived here 10 years and haven't had any problems with theft in the past. We're storing our lumber on the roof from now on.

We're finally officially done unroofing now and on to roofing!

Unroofing the Garage: Days 7 & 8

We had a bit of a hiatus between Days 5 & 6 and Days 7 & 8 of unroofing the garage because of this:

Who's to say no to a trip to the beach? The garage roof has been leaking for years, what's another week? We had plans to finish removing the last strip of roof on Sunday when we returned, but...it rained. All day. So it was Monday before the final unroofing was completed. That took more time than expected because one of our crew of 2 (me) came down with a cold and felt a little too wobbly to be on the roof.

Roofing supplies arrived on Monday also. The delivery truck didn't have equipment to place them on the roof, so that was up to us. We rented a ladder hoist. Which was fine, but it didn't come with instructions for putting it together, or using it, so it took a couple of trips into the house to check the internet to get it right and then we only figured out that it would dump the load at the top of the roof by accident. The hoist also had a partially stripped belt so it would only lift 2 shingles packages rather than the 400lbs it was rated for. The other problem is that one of us (me) isn't strong enough to be hefting squares of shingles. So that left it all to the man on the roof. Load the hoist, send 'em up, climb the ladder, place them on the roof, repeat.

It took all day Tuesday to get all of the shingles and roofing felt up on the roof and placed, but he did it. Direct quote, "Don't ever let me replace an entire roof again." Duly noted.

Unroofing the Garage: Days 5 & 6

We had the dumpster pulled from the front of the garage and a new one placed in the back on Thursday. Our end-of-week plans changed so we ended up with the gift of two extra days to work on the roof.

After waiting for the roof to dry out after torrential rains on Wednesday night, we got to the roof Thursday afternoon. Friday was downright chilly with a stiff wind, but actually good weather for roof work - no worries about overheating.

 
Just one more day of unroofing and pulling nails and the roof will go back on!

Unroofing the Garage: Days 3 & 4

This whole unroofing thing would be going much faster if we had more stamina, fewer other commitments, and control over the weather! We got the rest of the front portion of the roof off in Days 3 & 4. 

This led us to the conclusion that...we had to get the dumpster moved. There was just not going to be any good way to get the shingles from the backside of the roof to the dumpster on the front side. We tried throwing them and missed about half. We tried putting a tarp on the ground and dragging the tarp full of shingles to the dumpster, but overfilled it and spent more time emptying the tarp than we did taking down shingles. That just wasn't going to be sustainable. 

Since we'd also been working on removing plasterboard and insulation from the interior, the dumpster was already over half full, so we decided to pay the extra fee and have it pulled so we could get  a new one placed on the back side of the garage this morning. We scrapped the #1 copper that was in the valleys of the garage yesterday and that paid for cost of the extra dumpster pull. Win-win! 

Now we're just waiting for the roof to dry out after yesterday's rain. Before it rains again this afternoon.

Unroofing the Garage: Days 1 & 2

When we last blogged, we were thrilled to have bought another house. Then life intervened. Until early April. So here we are, in May, finally working on turning that house into a garage. We have puddles inside when it rains, so the first order of business is a new roof. 

We had great plans to get that done in a week. Turns out our local landfill now requires certification that what you're putting in your dumpster is asbestos-free. So, to get the dumpster, we had to take samples of the things we would be putting into it to a lab to have it tested. Which they had to send out. And there was a weekend in there before we got the results back. Last Thursday, we got the dumpster. 

We had a productive day and a half of removing the old roof, then it rained. And it rained. And it continued to rain. Now we have even bigger puddles in the garage and are wondering if we'll EVER get the roof off, but we're on our way!

We Bought Another House!

For most of the time we've lived in our present house, the house next door has been empty. It's a 1950s brick ranch house that had been turned into a doctor's office at some point so it's more office than home at this point. We've dreamed about buying the house for years and turning it into a garage and workshop. We have an old Jeep that's been under a car cover since we moved here and our basement is far less than ideal for a wood shop.

Today, the house next door, and several other properties, were up for auction. We watched the number of people checking it out last week at the preview. We tried to judge what people might be thinking about the place and how much it they might think it was worth. It certainly wasn't worth the appraisal they had on it. It's a nice lot, but the building would be a lot of work to turn back into a house. We were afraid someone would buy it, tear it down, and put something next door that wouldn't be a good neighbor to us.

We listened to the auction for the properties before ours and they went for below, way below, the appraised prices. There was hope! Our auction started and the price was low, real low. It was us against one other guy. He blinked. We stayed in the game. We bought the house! We need to wait 120 days for the IRS to decide if the price meets their lien before we start working on it, but after that we'll be on our way to having a 1500 square foot garage!

Adventures in Sandblasting

It's been a while since the last post, mostly because we haven't been doing much preservation-related. We got a sandblaster back in July that sat in the living room for a couple of months because a part was broken. We had gotten so used to it being part of the scenery that I had forgotten it didn't belong there until I started to dust it. We've gotten the sandblaster fixed now and moved it from the living room. We've also gotten the cast iron claw foot tub that precipitated the need for the sandblaster. This is a friend's tub that had been used outdoors as a horse trough for a while. The inside enamel is fine, but the outside wasn't quite ready for prime time. Enter the sandblaster.

We're learning about sandblasting as we go. While we've done it before, it was in a shop situation where everything was set up for us. We didn't have to choose the sand and find out the hard way that a sieve is really, really handy. In other words, the first day's sandblasting was a bit of a dud. The play sand clogged up the hose and more time was spent unclogging than blasting. We found blasting media at a local Tractor Supply and tried that next. It worked much better, though still clogged periodically.

The tub is going in our downstairs bathroom which has white tile with black accents. We decided the outside of the tub would be shiny black so it was primed first.

We then used 3 coats of black spray paint to cover the tub. We did this Labor Day weekend, which, anyone in the eastern half of the country knows was still stuck in the weather patterns caused by Hurricane Isaac. There were storms popping up here and there all weekend. It seemed that every time we went out to sandblast or paint, it would start sprinkling, then pouring rain. Persistence paid off though and we got it done!

Now the other story that goes along with the clogged sandblaster and the popup showers is that a cast iron claw foot tub is HEAVY!  We got it onto the truck with help from friends. The sawhorses you see it sitting on in the photos were about the same height as the truck bed so we could just slide it off and onto them. But getting in the house?? Not a job for the 2 of us (the one of us not pictured is just too whimpy!) So the tub sat in our yard for a week under a tarp and, since we live 30 miles away from our strongest friends, once it was painted we had no idea how to get it into the house. Fortunately, we were saved by a Virginia Tech football game. Friends dropped by our house to see us and we got them to help move the tub in.

Now the tub's inside and sitting on its side. We got to see inside the tub for the first time and are now working to clean all the stains from its previous life. We also need to decide what color to paint the claw feet and find the missing cleat for one of the feet to attach it to the bottom of the tub. Then we can flip it upright, plumb it, and relax in warm, blissful bubbles!