5.11.2016

This was a little bit of a frustrating day for Jim but we still got lots of good things done.

Jim worked this morning on getting everything ready to start putting shingles on the front!  He used the Bobcat to bring up quite a few bundles of shingles.  Every trip up the stairs, we would grab a bundle so that they were all upstairs in the apartment area and more accessible.  Sure love having our stairs!

Jim cut a bunch of half shingles to get started with...

Texturing the edges of the cut pieces...

He got the first piece of copper drip edge on the side and then put the first shingle in place.

Jim had probably only put a couple of shingles up when the gun jammed - badly.  He ended up having to dismantle the mechanism in order to get the nail out and then put it back together - it was a tedious chore.

But he got it working again and went back to putting up shingles.

Making good progress...

Putting up the first roof jack.  However, this is about as far as Jim could work on the roof today.  In order to work higher, he needs to put up the roof jacks and plank so he needs to have more shingles put on near the valley.  However, he can't put more shingles on because he would then have to remove the toe board that is right there.  He can't remove the toe board because he needs it there to put the next piece of valley flashing on.  And he can't put the valley flashing on until he gets more zip tape - he wanted to put an extra layer on the flashing.  Still with me?  Kind of confusing but basically we had to stop roof work at this point.

So we had a little extra time before we headed into Lowe's to pick up the zip tape as well as a few other necessary supplies.  We loaded up Jim's workbench from the downstairs shop and took it up to the woodworking shop.

We won't be able to proceed too much further on the roof without the snow guards, so Jim is turning to his next project - building the knee wall in the downstairs shop for the stairs.  We'll need to mix mortar so Jim wanted to get the mixer out and in the right position.

However, after a couple of pulls it wouldn't start. 

Thinking I was so very helpful, I showed Jim that there these two wires that looked like they were no longer connected.  Jim wasn't exactly sure what they were, but connected them back up.  Still no luck.  Jim tried starting fluid, took the spark plug out, and pulled until my arm hurt - still wouldn't start.  He then unhooked those two wires I had pointed out and it started right up!  Oops!  Jim figures they must be some sort of safety.

Once he got it started, he kept it running awhile and then moved it to a good spot to use.  He filled up both of its tires and then decided to put air in the box truck tires.  He gets in - dead battery.  We bought a one new battery last year but it has two and the other one obviously needs replaced.  So things definitely didn't quite go according to plan.

But look - at the end of the work day, we got a good start on the front and it looks amazing!

It was off to Lowe's to get our supplies.  One of the things we needed was another sheet of plywood to use as rake board backing.  Jim brought his saw along and he split the piece of plywood in half so it would fit in the back of the 4Runner.  Who needs a pickup?

 

 

Happy Birthday, Kyle - hope you had a great day!

 

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