Roof!

Well, we’re on to the promised blogging about the roof.  With lots of photos.

Here’s Hubby waving to the camera (note roof behind him):

Here’s Candy Cat at the back door watching Hubby and Snakelady and Bethesda all outside. She may go outside when she’s too arthritic to jump over the fence.

Here’s the algae growing on the garage roof in the worst possible light. Normally it doesn’t look quite so “dude! have you had someone look at your roof?” Yeah, the shingles were originally flat black. Above it is the honey locust tree that provides the shade etc. that fosters the algae growth.

Here’s a second view because I had a few good ones and I’m in a Flickr kinda mood:

Here’s the crappy flashing that allows water to leak down the chimney. The wet spot on the living room ceiling has dried now, as has the wet spot in the attic, so there’s nothing there to show. I couldn’t really get a shot of the widespread curling shingles, but they are there.

Here’s Candy wiping her face against the front screen door as I came around. No, she can’t come out this door either.

They don’t so much do arty roofs here with multi-colored shingles (like interspersed blue and green) like I saw in Portland when I was there 2 1/2 years ago. And I’m not so much a decorator. I looked at a lot of roofs and finally just went with flat black. They talked to me about a “pewter” roof that’s mainly gray. It looked nice on the blue houses we saw, but we’ve got red brick, white siding and black shingles. Standard, standard, standard. I’m going with a standard, flat-black roof (“charcoal”). Snakelady striking out on her own to start a neighborhood trend of interesting roofing is really not a good idea for aesthetic reasons.

The current roof was a 20-year roof. It lasted 17 years. We’ve gone with 30-year shingles. Hell, we might be here that long. We really like this house. Normally it takes me years to get used to a new place to live. I never did get used to our last place despite the fact that it was a “nice” apartment with cathedral ceilings, an enormous kitchen and a first floor laundry, etc., etc. I just never fit in there. This place is my home. Right down to the questionably sponge painted guest room, the loose tiles in the kitchen floor, the veritable sea of cream carpeting in the family room and the leaky basement.

In the freezer are fudge brownies I made from scratch (from that Brownie Cookbook I got with Mom on our spa day two years ago). Very good brownies. For the crew. So they’ll think, “Wow, a great family lives here. We’ll want to do our best on their roof. Do this one right, y’all!” Roof construction starts later this week.