The roof is now completely gone

The roof is now completely gone and the weather has been clear and dry. The house definitely looks funny, like it got a crew cut. Jenn posted all of the pictures of the project that we’ve taken with the digital camera on the web this week. We sent links of the pictures to various friends and relatives. Everyone seems very interested and excited by our project. The roofless party was a hit. We made pizzas and asked our guests to put their favorite toppings on it. Toppings for a roofless party… Mike brought a small potato and told me to attach it to my penis so that I would be a ‘roofless dick-tater.’ I still don’t get it.

The builders told me that they plan to cut the whole in the ceiling for the stairway this week. So, the next issue is going to be what it’s like to live in the house with a giant whole in the ceiling. I think dust and weather are going to be bigger issues than they have been up to this point. Should be interesting. Hopefully it won’t rain. The forecast calls for dry weather through the weekend, but cloudy with a possibility of rain by the middle next week. Another interesting complication is our planned trip to Ashland the first weekend in October. The builders are also planning to be out of town that weekend and also want to take off the early part of that week. So, if we do get some rain during that time, no one will be around to monitor the situation. Yikes.

Now it’s the week of Sept 15, 2003, and the roofing material is finally coming off. Delays and more delays. The foundation work took longer than they expected and I think they were deliberately stalling on taking the roof off because of the damp weather. Even now the forecast calls for light sprinkles today, and rain tomorrow. However, longer range forecast calls for clearer weather into next week. We might just get away with minimal precipitation. The builders now say that the roof will be open for around 4 weeks. Hopefully it won’t be any longer than that.

We had to pull the coral bark maple out of the front yard. The builders say that the crane used to lift the roof beams is going to need to pull into the front yard right where the tree was. We just planted the tree this spring. Ming, the neighborhood 6 year old helped with the transplant. We pulled it up and put it in one of the recycling bins. We did loose some roots in the move, which is never good. Hopefully it survives.

We’re planning a roof-less party this Saturday. Hopefully it will be a festive occasion and not a wake for the interior of our house.

Here are the forms for the cement foundation blocks for the columns that will hold up the back part of the roof: