BIG Art; Tiny House Post No. 12 – Ondura Roofing

The past four weeks have escaped in a blur of traveling, hospital visits, and a wee bit of building.  Hard as it is to believe, the last time I posted was five weeks ago when we finished installing the windows.  The plan was to come back strong and get most of the roofing done over Labor Day weekend but my body had other ideas.  Two days before Labor Day weekend, I ended up in the ER with a bad case of bacterial pneumonia.  The several nurse practitioners I ended up consulting were just as surprised as I was, but I guess it was time for a rest.

We did manage to get one building day in over Labor Day weekend thanks to the eternal energy and support of my mother and my volunteers.  Hearth Members Robin Miller and Kara Kulpa and volunteer Matt P showed up to keep the work going while I supervised from the hammock in a hydrocodone-induced stupor.  In the Building Weekend 10.5 time lapse video you can see the occupied hammock in the upper right corner.

During the second and third weekends in September, I hosted Tumbleweed Tiny House Workshops in Chicago and Philadelphia, taking my pneumonia with me while my volunteers kept working on BIG Art; Tiny House.  For the first time, I had people working on my house while I wasn’t there and this was both terrifying and very good for me.  While I was in Chicago on September 12, my mother was joined by Rebekah Owens of Tiny Home Helper, who has been a mainstay during the entire project, to finish the roofing trim and start to work on the drip edge.  Rebekah came back on September 17 while I was in Philadelphia and worked with Hearth Member Nathaniel Bearg to install the last of the drip edge around the roof and start on the Grace Ice and Water.

This past weekend, we got back into the building process full blast.  We had beautiful fall weather both days and managed to get the Grace Ice and Water over the length of the gable roof on Saturday.  We also started to play with window trim, which was incredibly frustrating and did not end up going anywhere except back to the drawing board for more research.  We had more luck on the siding, which we spent many hours painting with exterior primer.  Hearth Member Emily Tran lent her hands to start the painting which volunteers Chris and Laura helped with the ice and water.

On Sunday we put in another full day and installed the Ondura Roofing along the front half of the roof.  The roofing was quite easy to work with, although we did have to remember that it could expand as we pulled on it and that threw off our measurements a few times.  I spent nearly six hours up on the roof as we measured and installed the roofing, which got slowly more uncomfortable as more roofing was applied.  By the end of the day, we installed the first piece of the ridge cap and the roof was one again easier to maneuver over.

While Hearth Member Nathaniel Bearg, my mother, and I were working on the roofing, Matt came back and installed the based board around the bottom of the house.  Once this was complete, he built and painted the corner boards and then continued to paint the siding.  In short, we got white oil based paint everywhere.  We’re still planning to be weather-tight by winter and are excited to be showing off the progress of the house so far at the First Thursday Opening on Oct 1 from 6:00-8:00.