Chapter 6...Finishing the Trusses and Getting the Plywood on the Roof

Hi everyone. I am going to start chapter 6 with Thursday June 26. Thursday- We were determined to finish the trusses. We had a good system and we knew what to do now we just had to do it. Mike was having a rough time because his arm was really sore from the past 2 days using the screw gun. We decided to put up 2 trusses, take a break, and put ice on Mike's arm. This was working fine and we got about half way done. Then Howard, the man who owns the cows, showed up to see how we were doing. He had great timing because it gave Mike a chance to take aspirin, ice his arm some more, and take another break. We talked for a while and by the time Howard left Mike was feeling much better. This is a view looking at the front of our house. It took us most of the day but we finally finished all the trusses. I am so, so happy. These are the finished trusses. This is what it looks like from inside the house Mike is also very happy that we got the trusses up because we didn't have to pay for a crane to help us. Friday- All we had to do today was put up 40 sheets of 4 x 8 plywood on top of the trusses. Sounds easy, right, and it is but it took us much longer than expected. First we chalked off the plywood every 2 feet to make it easier to screw the plywood to the trusses. Then we picked up the plywood, and put it on top of the trusses at the back of the house and pushed it foward. Once we got the plywood in place we glued, H-clipped, and screwed each board down. This is Mike working. And me. See I really do more than take pictures. We got about 5 rows done(25 sheets) and a new neighbor stopped by. Once he left the weather changed and it looked like there was going to be a bad storm so we packed everything up and went home. More pictures of the roof And we were so close to finishing Saturday We got to the property at a reasonable time and started working on the roof. We had 15 sheets of plywood left to get on top. It was very windy this morning so we had to be very careful with the plywood sheets so they wouldn't fly off the roof and knock one of us out. By the time we got most of the boards up it was getting pretty hot so we took a break and had lunch. While we are having lunch, Mike says to me " I think I know how we can get the metal roof up to the top". Oh no, now I know I'm in trouble. Have you ever heard of "Bob The Builder"?(it's a cartoon) Anyway, his motto is "we can build it yes we can". Well Mike thinks the 2 of us can do everything. O.K. honey, what's the plan? We will take the trailer behind the jeep down to the metal roof(you know that pile on the side of the road?), put 2 sheets of plywood on the ground to protect the roofing, and move all the metal roofing onto the plywood. The reason for this is we have to get to the skid at the bottom of the metal roofing. O.K., so we move 26 sheets of metal 3 feet x 26 feet long. It was actually pretty easy. Then we put the skid sideways on our trailer than screwed and bungeed it on. We loaded 2 sheets of metal roofing and strapped that on. This was going to be our test run. We get to the top with no major problems. We go back and load up 1/2 the metal roofing, strap it down, and bring it to the top. We unload the metal roofing onto our plywood roof. One more trip and we are finished. Now everything is at the top and we are done. Finishing the plywood on the roof Mike bringing up the metal roof to the top Now everything is at the top Now Mike says to me "we should load 10 4 x 8 sheets of T-111 plywood onto the trailer and bring them down in front of the house so we can bring them inside. Oh heck, why not? We get the 10 sheets inside the house(which is nice and shaded now). Now we are ready to side the front of the house this coming week. That finishes up our story for the week. By the way today is exactly 1 month since we started grading our property. I think we are moving along nicely. Mike told me we would take our time on this house. He's told me that before but we always end up working like nuts. It's all good though because we love doing this kind of work together. As usual, I hope you are enjoying our story. Lisa and Mike