As I’ve said here before, many times, there’s the person(s) that built the house and did a good job. And there’s the idiot(s) that came along later and did stupid stuff. We are trying hard to either fix the idiot stuff or to not be the next idiot.
One of the biggest pain in our homeowner’s butts is the roof. Oy. There has always been a leak somewhere that ends up in the kitchen. We’ve done all sorts of things over the years to try and find the source but never have. On top of that, where it chooses to drip down isn’t well made anyway so just added to the problem.
“They” added onto the kitchen at some point. Pushed the house out several feet and instead of changing the slope of the roof, they made the new section flat. And in the worst possible place for a flat section. As you can see in the photo below, one quarter of the runoff from the roof hits the flat section. Add in the leak (which made rot which caused more leaks), and it is a disaster up there. It was “repaired” a while back but they really just made it worse.
One of the things on Jack’s List is replacing the roof. We thought at first we would do an extensive bandaid approach but coating the roof with some sort of plastic paint stuff. But after he did measurements the other day, the total replacement cost isn’t as bad as we thought it would be. And a piggy bank was born. By fall, we will have the money saved up and we’ll get a new roof. We’re sticking with the metal. Jack and Crew will take all the old stuff off, replace any rotted rafters, take both chimneys down (the little one to the right in the photo isn’t hooked to anything), and put on a new roof and a ridge vent (which we don’t have).
And before anyone asks, yes, Jack worked in roofing. He knows what he is doing. We trust this guy. He’s been a treat to have around. Give him a job, he does it. He is, literally, a Jack of Many Trades.
Anyway, he got up there the other day and looked around, did the measurements, and tried to remedy some of the leaking into the kitchen. It didn’t work but he tried. The wall from where Lorna is on the ladder to her right will be replaced as well. That wall is rotted not only from the leak but from the boxwoods that were right up against the house. We trim them down to the dirt but they keep coming back. They’re too close to the foundation to dig, dammit. But you can see where they have rotted the bottom-most board and discolored the wall under that nasty window. I’m standing in the dog lot, by the way. Barely visible to the far right of the photo is the dog ramp we built last year.
Click image for larger version
Soon I’ll have other “House Projects:” posts as we are going to work poor Jack ragged this summer. Next weekend, if the weather is good, we’ll be renting a digger and he’ll be knocking down trees, clearing out the old garage, digging out the stream, and anything else we have time for. Then it will be mulching all the piles of debris (or stacking it for a cool cookout we’re planning for when The Kids are here this summer). Then there’s the new roof on the pump house, knocking down the old shed, rebuilding the front porch….there’s a lot to do.
Donations to the “House That Jack Fixed” piggy bank are being accepted!