BIG Art; Tiny House Post No. 8: Sheathing the Roof

Last weekend, the project finally turned into a grind (thus the short blog post).  Showing up on Saturday was not easy, but I’m glad we did because the first time you say “Oh, I guess I can just take it easy today” quickly becomes the first of many.

So, despite rain on Saturday, humidity and head on Sunday, and the vestiges of a not-so-fun stress related stomach problem, we built!  And we made dormer walls!  With these two additions, the house is finally starting to really feel like a house.

One thing I did learn is not to be sucked into the desire to do things out of order just because of visual satisfaction.  Last Saturday, while two of our wonderful volunteers were hammering in all our hurricane clips, I decided it was time to put on the dormer rafters.  Not because it actually was time to put in the dormer rafters, but because I really really wanted to see that part completed and the hurricane clips (though very important) were not actually making any visual difference.

Of course, halfway through the first side, we realized that the reason you’re supposed to wait is that the dormer walls weren’t straight yet.  Oops.  That was the message at the end of last weekend, along with the first spatterings of rain, that it was time to stop.

This weekend, we dove back into the roof but actually followed the directions, starting by sheathing the front gable.  Working started to feel more and more like playing on a jungle gym as we hoisted ourselves up onto planks to get to rafters to nail on plywood.  Throughout the course of the day on Saturday, we managed to get plywood on the entire front half of the roof and nail in 2×4’s with ventilating holes along the top of the ceiling plate.

We also got a visit from an amazing gargoyle that my mother painted this past week.  Because who wouldn’t want a giant gargoyle on their tiny house?

Our work ground to a halt around 6:30 on Saturday when my body decided it was time to rest, this time voicing its distress with another terrible stomach ache.  For the record, Mother Nature or whoever is in charge of such things, it would be great if health issues were activated by times of rest when you actually have time to deal with them not by times of stress. Just saying.

And so, on the 44th day of building, we finally rested.  My mother and I spent Sunday getting each other massages, going to see Inside Out (so cute!), and having an early birthday dinner together.  We managed to keep going when the grind was trying to get to us to quit and also took a rest when our bodies were telling us to stop pushing.

And somehow, we are still on schedule!