11.11.11 Roofing Day

Happy 11.11.11!!! It’s kind of fun when a date like that rolls around! I made sure I took a photo at 11:11 this morning. Did you guys celebrate in any way? I use the term celebrate loosely because all I celebrated with was a photo :) Most people think of today as just Veteran’s Day but I simply think of it as my Mom’s birthday. So happy birthday Mom! Send some love her way by posting a comment for her :) I know she will read every single one!

This year, 11.11.11 is also roofing day for us. That’s right, we just got ourselves a new roof. I was just thinking about how some projects are super fun to do and have a big impact in the looks department. And then there are others, and you can’t see a difference at all. That’s how the roof was. An expensive project with no exciting results. Although I’m sure my husband would disagree because he is very excited for our new roof :)

Earlier this year, you may recall, we had tornadoes pass through our area. We didn’t think we had any damage except for 2 broken panes in a window. Unlike a lot of other people, we still had a roof over our heads. What we didn’t realize is that all that wind and hail did significant damage to our roof. We had such a dry summer that we didn’t have any problems. And then September came. You may remember we had another storm with lots of water. Not only did we get water in our basement but we also realized we had some problems with our roof. We now have a bunch of spots on our ceiling and we have had to bring out the buckets several times since then. No fun! Thankfully, right before the storm in September, we had a friend suggest to us to have our insurance company take a look at our roof just in case there was any damage. We are so glad we did. Because of the storm damage, we got our roof replaced by our insurance company! So here is a peek into what went down starting yesterday and finishing today:

This is the before photo. I wasn’t sure what the after would look like so I wanted to make sure I documented it :)

Around noon, the truck with our roofing materials came. I stood inside the living room watching him unload them. I sort of felt like a reverse peeping tom!

Shortly after the truck came, the workers showed up. They started by laying tarps all the way around the house. Then the demolition began. And it was loud! From inside the house I could hear lots of scraping and pounding and things were flying past the windows. It was kind of fun… at first :) After a while I grew tired of it… remember how I said it was loud?!

Out the front window.

Out the breakfast nook window, right side.

Out the breakfast nook window, left side (look! I even got one in motion!).

I’m pretty sure these roofing guys thought I was crazy for taking pictures so I started sneaking around and taking them through the windows. I can’t help my need to document everything! It was a really weird feeling to know that there were several people on my roof all day. Weird but good knowing the problems would be solved.

After a while of demolition, they had gotten all of the old off and started working on the new.

Seriously, what a mess! I’m so glad they clean up after themselves!

These guys worked hard. All day and even into the night once it got dark. We were kind of wondering how they could see out there. Then, this morning we woke up a little after 7 am to them back on our roof, working away. Not exactly the way I would have chosen to wake up! I’m telling you, it’s really loud when they are working, it sounds like they are jumping around up there. Our poor cat was so scared all day yesterday and this morning. She couldn’t figure out what was going on and kept hiding under the covers.

They had this cool pulley system to get the shingles up to the top. I had to watch them a little this morning. Again, I’m sure they thought I was crazy!

Once they were done and had cleaned up everything, they went over all the grass and other areas with a magnetic rake-like thing (I’m sure that is its technical name!) He just swept the ground with it and it would pick up any loose nails and such.

And finally, just before noon today, they packed up and left and ta-da! The roof was all done. See what I mean about before and afters? It doesn’t look any different to me :) Here is the before and after again:

Before…

After…

The only difference I can really see is that metal thing sticking out is now black instead of rusted white which was a bonus for me because I didn’t even know they were going to do that! Yay! Although I can’t tell a big difference in the looks department, hopefully I will be able to tell a difference when it rains.

Next up, the gutters! Another non-exciting project that will (hopefully) make a difference. Now I need to paint all of the spots on the inside of the house. Yeesh! There is always something to do, isn’t there?

Have a fantastic Verteran’s/11.11.11/weekend!!!