Getting a Roof.

When we finally  started our reno, my husband gave me about one day notice. He came home with a framer one day, and the next day they were ripping off roof. I panicked. "You said you wanted it done, what are you complaining about." Was the answer to my pleading for more time to move things from upstairs. 


The kids and I grabbed things as fast as we could and brought what we could down to the main level. Some of the furniture ended up being moved off the second level floor, which was now our roof, with a Bobcat. Fun times. I wish I had been blogging while we were doing it, I could have got some great pictures. 

It was very weird walking up your stairs to be standing outside. The rectangle hole in the floor is the old stair well. 


Anyways the Reno had begun. No permits, and an old plan that no longer worked because we had now ripped off the entire second storey of our home. So I called our designer, told him what my husband was doing, and as quick as we could we got new plans drawn up for the new second floor.

This is a picture of the only addition we were going to do, minus the rest of the second floor that was not supposed to be ripped off to begin with.

Walls being built. The guy with no shirt is the framer my husband hired to help, everyone else you will see in these pictures are either, my husband, my brothers, or my sons. I found out later that the framer was smoking pot every time he took a break, maybe why he did not think to move beds out of the way of the down pour that ensued when he removed tarps from our roof in the wake of a storm. May also be the reason he did not notice the storm coming.

Walls going up, the guy in the grey t-shirt on the left would be my husband.

Walls are up and now the roof trusses are going up. Notice the blue tarp on the left hand corner, that was all we had to protect us from the rain, and we did get rain. It poured in to my cabinets in the kitchen, as well as many other places.

More  trusses going up. Even the tarps need some sort of support.

The stairs going up to the second level were the stairs that used to go down to the basement from the kitchen. They were put to good use for months during our reno.

I guess I never got a picture of the framing complete before we has some sort of waterproofing on it. It stayed covered in tarps for weeks, which seemed like months, until my husband, who is a roofer by trade, had time and a break in the weather to get a waterproof membrane down.

Framing complete, back side view. Notice the nice waterproof membrane on there. No more floods. Yay! 

All the framing done and waterproofed roof. Notice the tarps now on the ground. The great thing about this is that that waterproof membrane is still on under our shingles, so, our roof should not leak, ever. 


Once my husband decided he was going to rip off the whole second floor, I decided that we should then have a second floor deck with doors in all the bedrooms. Easy exit if there is ever a fire and nice place to enjoy in the summer. That is why you there are doors framed in.

View from the front. You can see the old roof line if you look to the left of the chimney. The chimney now needs to be built up higher, one of the things that still needs to be done.

Drawing of how the house is to look nee it is done. To get the house to this point only took a little over a month. We started June 3 and the above picture was taken July 7. Not bad, really. That included rip off and and all. It lulled me into a false security that this was going to actually get done.