Call Me A Roofer

The "Doll House" has been having some leaky roof issues during some of the recent tropical downpours. A couple of years ago, I had a local roofer use the roll roofing to try to solve that problem. It only worked temporarily, and the time came to make major improvements.

My friend, Lynn, who has been doing much of the recent work on the Office of Multiplicity, said she would come early today to help me put the roof on. She always brings her daughter, Misty, age 13, who is normally an excellent helper. Lynn said that she wouldn't get on the roof, but Lynn is normally fearless, and I expected her to climb up and pitch in after the first few minutes. Oh, how wrong I was!

Lynn and Misty arrived at 8:00 AM, which is good, because the temperatures were projected to rise to the mid 90's. I went up to start freeing up the flashing at the upper end of this 24' x 13' roof area. Lynn and Misty stood on the ground, talking to my renter, Frankie. Lynn again declined to get on the room, and Misty followed her mother's lead. The whole roofing project was then up to me.

Lynn tossed me tools when I needed them and handed up the V-crimp sheet metal one piece at at time. They are unweildy due to length, so I'm glad she helped with that, but Frankie did just as well when Lynn went to Klekar's Lumber Yard to get more meta. After I got over my irritation at the lack of help, I got into a rhythm of lining up the 14' sheets of metal and screwing them down to the deck. Thank goodness, it's not a very steep roof. It took twelve sheets of 14' and five sheets of 8' V-crimp to cover the roof over the kitchen and back porch/steps.

During the process, Lynn noticed the fat next door neighbor leaning against his porch post, watching us work. She was really grumbling under her breath about it, so I finally looked up and said to him (with a smile), "You could come help!"

He laughed and said, "I just find it surprising to see two women working."

I had to resist the urge to show him a one finger salute and instead told him, "I wouldn't phrase it that way if I were you." Lynn added some comments about men working, and the fellow went into his house.

Luckily, the weather was partly cloudy, and I had occasional shade from white puffy clouds. When the sun came out, the roof really started heating up. The last ten minutes of work, just before 11:00 AM were horribly hot. I drank two bottles of water during the process, but I still lost three pounds during the three hours it took to get the roof on.

That's a project that's been looming over me for a while, and I'm glad to get it finished. Proud of my work on it, too, especially since it turned out to be an almost solo project!