A Busy Weekend

The new awning on the shed went up last weekend.  Most of the prep work was done weekday evenings last week.  I couldn't see anything wrong with the construction of the old awning (other than the fact that it had rotted away because it was never finished), so while dismantling it I kept some parts to use as patterns for the replacement roof.  Using these patterns, by last Friday I had the new joists all notched and angled, and the sistered joists for each edge of the new roof assembled.

On Saturday morning the framing for the new roof went up remarkably easily.  I was sidelined for an hour and a half over lunch while my drill battery recharged, but even with this delay by two in the afternoon the shell of the new awning was up.  

Sunday's work was more challenging.  With me on the roof and Charles on the ground, we lugged up sheets of plywood for the roof deck.  Because it was a Sunday, we didn't start work until about 11am.  But we worked pretty much straight through until around 8 that evening.  By then the plywood was all up and most of it was under tar paper.  For now, the project is on hold for the next few days while we explore our options. 

The original plan was to shingle the new awning roof and recoat the original metal roof over the shed itself.  That may still be the route we take, but before I climb back up onto that roof we're going to get some estimates at having a new metal roof put on the entire building.  The reasons are several. 

1 - We already bought three gallons of rust inhibiting primer for the existing metal roof, and wow is that stuff expensive!  By the time we prime and paint the existing roof we will have around $300 already invested, and shingles for the awning roof will add to this figure.  Although the current metal roof seems solid, I would hate to put that much money and work into recoating it only to have the rust pop through again a couple years down the road. 

2 - I've been skeptical all along about how the roof would look half standing seam and half shingle.  If we're going to have to invest a decent amount of money in this regardless, I think it would look better to have the entire roof be metal.   

3 - Despite doing a lot of it lately, I still don't like crawling around on the roof. 

4 - My parents have offered to contribute some of the cost of a new metal roof as an anniversary/early Christmas gift.  (I suspect this offer was made partly because my dad doesn't like the idea of his only daughter crawling around on the roof any more than his daughter likes doing the crawling.)

I've got my fingers crossed that estimates for a new roof are not too absurd.