Our new homestead needed a new roof and being the DIY people that we are, we decided to reroof the house ourselves this past week. It took us 5 days. Why it took so long is because it was just the 4 of us and my dad every day but one day. A guy friend of my husband’s came on day4 and helped put on half the metal roof. We have a few improvements that need done to our house before we can start improving our land for more animals, and of course we have a lot of projects and goals for our homestead.
So, to get into more detail we replaced our shingled roof on the house with a metal roof. We were going to just re-caulk the cement boards aka fascia boards covering the eaves of the house. It’s also what the soffit attaches to (soffit is the overhang from the house eaves or the rafters of your roof, it is installed to cover the underside of your roof overhang and the fascia goes on the front part) and repaint the fascia white before stripping the old shingles off and then start putting on the new metal roof, but when my husband was up on the ladder caulking the fascia board seams he discovered the wood behind some of it was rotten so instead of just repainting the fascia boards and re-caulking the seams we’re going to have to replace at least half of the wood and fascia boards. So the day consisted of seeing how much wood was damaged. Rain was heading in Saturday night and Sunday so we couldn’t strip the shingles off Saturday as planned.
So, instead of Monday being the day to start roofing, it ended up being the day we stripped off all the shingles. The morning and some of the afternoon consisted of very dirty itchy work for the kids and I picking up all shingles mess as the guys scraped them off. Once the old shingles were off the guys spent a little time making sure no wood under the shingles were damaged and needed to be replaced. There was only a little damage in 2 corners of the house. After they evaluated everything, the trip to Lowe’s was made to get everything that was needed.
Tuesday consisted of all the damaged wood getting cut off from the sides of the house. It was a very time consuming endeavor it took pretty much all day and lots of climbing up and down the ladder.
Wednesday was spent replacing the wood, putting up the new fascia cement boards, and putting down all the underlayment made to go under metal roofing. We also got 5 pieces of the metal put on the roof before dark ran us inside. The kids really enjoyed helping nail down the underlayment with the nail gun.
Thursday my husband went back to work so we didn’t get started on putting up any metal roofing till after 2 0’clock in the afternoon. Thankfully, a friend of my husband’s came and helped out till dark. So, one side of the roof got done. That side has a gable and the fireplace vent so that part of the house was a little more complicated to re-roof.
Friday the rest of the roof was installed. Thankfully God put a bubble around our house to keep the rain away. At one point it was raining in the field and pond in front of the house we could see the rain hitting the water pretty steadily but we were only getting a little sprinkle of rain it was a pretty awesome thing to behold. We’re tired but very happy to have the metal roof all installed and no longer have to worry about old shingles and water damage. Our rotten barn cat had to be gotten off the roof about 8 times throughout the week. He kept climbing up the ladder getting up on the roof then walking around meowing cause he didn’t know how to get down. I’m posting a picture of him trying to get off the roof using the ladder, so funny. He of course got stuck trying to figure out how to climb down the ladder.
Side note: Yes, we could’ve hired it all done and it would’ve been easier on us but I feel like that’s not what living like this is about. Sometimes to live a homesteading life, to be more self-sufficient, means a lot of dirty hard work, learning new things, researching, talking to others, and sometimes just winging it. Thankfully, I have an amazing husband and dad that know how to do a lot of things aka what I like to call A Jack of all Trades. I’m very blessed and I love that we get to live like this.