Thursday, September 09, 2010

Let the Sun Shine In!

The work on the roof project has begun. The first phase involves removing the front porch in the front of the house and the fire escape in the back of the house. Yesterday the front porch came down and today I ripped up the floor of the porch. I also have to get the roofing supplies from the back yard to the third floor of the house.

Here is a picture of the house without the front porch. It hasn't looked like this since around 1906. That was the date on a piece of newspaper stuffed into a cavity by the window trim that was covered by the porch. I found it interesting that the porch was put on before the house was painted red.



The pile of wood from the demolition.



After the fire escape comes down I will rent a dumpster and invite all those people who volunteered to help me over for pizza and beer so we can transfer the piles into the dumpster! The work on the gutters and the slate will begin after that.

I am going to be installing the faux slate shingle instead of real slate. The main reason being that it can be installed with regular roofing nails instead of copper or stainless steel nails and I am less likely to break the tiles. They also come pre-shaped so there is no specialized cutting to be done. The total cost so far for the tools and supplies has been about $8200. Remember, I was quoted $43,000 to do the job. I predict that the total cost will be between $10,000 and $12,000 after renting a dumpster and buying a few more tools if I can't borrow them or rent them.

This is going to be a tough job and probably time consuming. I will know in a week or so as I start to work on the back section of the house. It could be worse though. Last week we were in Belfast, Maine where I took this photograph. I have to admit, we have our fair share of abandoned property in Dayton but this is proof that someone, somewhere is worse off than you!

3 comments:

Kate H. said...

I'm not sure, but in your historic photo in the blog banner it looks like there's some kind of high trim over the front door. Also there seems to be some impression of same on the brick now that the porch is gone. Any idea what used to be there?

Oh, and when I saw the title of this post, I wondered it it were a play on "Sunshine Laws." :-) Have the newspaper reporters been, ahem, investigating the work? If they do, tell them they can help!

Shiloe @ Tar Paper Crane said...

The house looks completely different without that porch! Good luck on the roofing project. I'm interested in hearing about your experiences with faux slate.

slateberry said...

I wasn't going to mention it before, because I thought Waltham, MA was too far, but if you just got back from Belfast, then we are just a short jaunt by your standards. The Charles River Museum of Industry has a steampunk exhibit through May 10, 2011. Hope you stop by. And let me know if you're coming--as an urban planning/homeschooling/house restoring on a budget fan, I'd be glad to roll out the welcome mat for you!