Steward of a House

I spent this afternoon mostly on my roof. Not because it's got a nice view of our surrounding neighbors backyards, which it does...but because I finally deemed it time to fix the shingles. It's an old house with a not sooo old roof, but I suppose it's old enough. You can watch some of the shingles flutter up when the wind gusts hard enough out of the west. Some of them you can't, because they're not there anymore hence today's home stewardship endeavor. I'm not entirely familiar with roofing, but I've seen some of the people who make a living at it and figured I could easily pick it up in a day thanks to google, and Home Depot. So aside from enjoying the passing clouds and occasional rooftop warmth when the sun peeked through...with aching ankles and knees...

















I replaced some weathered, worn and tattered pieces of shingles with new, solid, dependable ones. Now when I picked them out I knew they weren't the color of my roof...
...but my roof no longer looks as it did when it was brand new. They did not however look like the spots that had recently been patched right before purchasing the house, which could have been the original color. I had brought Jada along for the Home Depot trip which though I love and respect her opinions, I sometimes find more humor and/or frustration in them than seriousness. So when she said go with the Weathered Gray I thought "yeah that's great it'll look just like our old gray weathered roof does now after years of southern climatic forces..."

So up I went with 50 pounds of shingles on my shoulder, a hammer, some roofing nails and a chisel (I don't apparently own a pry bar). It's a pretty easy process really for anyone who hasn't had the pleasure of grating their knuckles like mozzarella, scratching fiberglass splinters in between their fingers all day, and cleaning asphalt out from under your fingernails. You gently lift the shingles, pry up eight nails, remove the old, clean out the debris, replace with the new, and renail the eight nails. After my first patch I stood up carefully, inspected my handiwork, and like all good artists, began critiquing my work as well as the new color scheme I had unleashed on my roof.

Now I've always been a fan of plaid...


but something here just didn't seem right...I guess I just never thought of it as a style for my roof.

I'm still not convinced about the resale value as far as the house goes, but as long as it's still under my care, I will love it and care for it and repair damaged shingles with weathered gray ones until I run out. After that maybe I'll go pick out another color to add further to the shingle vomit that will cover my house in an effort to prevent replacing the whole thing. You could say I have a 20 year old, 2 year old, 1 day old roof...kinda like that Johnny Cash song about his car...

...at least I won't get water damage...right?