We now faced some related decisions, beginning with the kind of roofing.

Our preference was for standing seam metal, but we were concerned about the price. It would, however, allow for a lesser roof pitch, and that would give us more headroom, and that was in addition to its added durability.

Asphalt shingles may be less expensive, but we live in a heavy winds-prone town. The forecast seems to have gale warnings every other day, at least for small craft out on the water. After a strong storm, the streets and yards are littered with blown-away shingles, even from new houses.

As I said, living beside the sea exposes us to a lot of wind.

~*~

The next decision involved the color. There were more standard color options than I’d thought from casual observation.

We liked bright red and the bold cobalt, at least for homes out in the country, but ours is tucked into a tight neighborhood and we wanted to continue to blend in. Our goal was something subtle but still classy. The color of the metal would also determine the shade of trim we would be applying later, maybe around the foundation, too.

We settled on a pale blue, which we find is common around the neighborhood.

There was far more to do up there than we could see from the street, and far more steps than simply putting the metal sheets down.

With condensation as a consideration, a vapor barrier went up. Strapping and rigid-foam insulation boards were fitted and secured. A weather-resistant fascia went around the trim. As did flashing.

And finally, we had the metal roofing itself.

After several setbacks from bad weather, Adam and Keith worked like maniacs over the weekend to have it securely in place before a hurricane-force storm – and then Christmas, a storm of a whole other nature.

~*~

As for the exterior walls, new cedar shake shingles were a given.

Week 7 brought the dramatic steps that would be seen from the street. This is a small town, after all, and people would talk. Fortunately, all we heard was approval and admiration.

As another plus, the weather turned in our favor, a week without rain.

As an added blessing, Adam, our exacting contractor, was joined by Keith, a simpatico master carpenter (even mediocre ones are hard to find around here). Fortuitously, they melded into a relentless team that raised the back wall, crafted new rafters, and encased the roof like clockwork.

Doing that precisely to an old freeform house like ours required many adjustments akin to sculpting, which these two performed with great understanding and patience.

The new wall would be sitting atop an old wall that was serpentine in length and height. It required a lot of precise correction.

The week ended with the thrill of seeing back half of our greatly expanded upstairs actually buttoned up days before Thanksgiving and the wintry weather to follow.

The front half will have to wait till spring, but there’s plenty to do before then. Much more, actually, than I wanted to consider.

After a week or more of finetuning the ridgepole and columns, Adam was ready for more drama. It was time for the old roof and rafters to go.

By now, much of the time the work was mostly loud reverberations punctuated by pounding and thuds within the top half of our house. Most of it mystified me. It often sounded like a war zone, especially when the air compressor kicked in. Not that I’m complaining.

Here we were, six weeks and thousands of dollars later and nothing we’d done was of the sort that would appear on a flip-this-house kind of a video streaming channel – the superficial changes that one local inspector we know dismisses as “lipstick.”

You do have to love an old house. Or, for perspective, an old lover.

Now we faced the decisive moment. Off with the back half of our upstairs!

A large, “rolling” dumpster was in place.

That saw appeared like the fin on a shark.

And then the roofing was removed in panels.

We got an idea of what a deck up there would be like.

The dumpster quickly filled.

 

While waiting three years for our big renovations to transpire, I often joked that living here was like camping. I won’t go into the list now, but I did accept defects that could have greatly raised my blood pressure if they weren’t already on the to-be-addressed list.

I could even go into the pro-gentrification argument that if big repairs weren’t being undertaken, these dwellings were well on their way to collapse.

Our renovation, daunting as it is, remains a minor effort compared to a few others in town, including true mansions being brought back from the brink. One is a fussy restoration project to keep the place as close to historic accuracy as possible, apart from wiring and a kitchen upgrade. Another is to improve its Victorian social showcase qualities.

I’m also finally understanding why so many old houses out in the surrounding countryside have been left to fall in. They simply weren’t worth the cost of upgrading, not when you could build newer, better, even closer to the world for less.

One of the annoyances we had tolerated was the big cavity where the second chimney had stood – the one that was about to collapse when we bid on the house.

We had passed on an offer to rebuild the brickwork, no matter how charming a working fireplace would have been. The chimney would have limited our remodeling options on the second floor, or so I argued, and without it, we do have a 2½-by-5-foot space to develop into a closet or something on the main floor. Patching the floor itself would be a huge improvement, as well, rather than having a light covering that couldn’t bear weight.

The cavity now provided a place where that 28-foot-long LVL column could run down through the house, as well as some new electrical wiring.

And, during a later break, Adam even fixed the holes.

Yes, step by step, it was all coming together.

Three weeks into the project, I noted my wonder at how quickly the work was going.

The back half of the upstairs interior was now exposed, giving us a sense of how much flooring and headspace we would be gaining. And we could see all of the rafters. Unobstructed? Adam had set up an impressive indoor workshop on the back half of the second floor, while the front two rooms clustered many of our possessions, now under plastic.

That said, I also noted my concern at how slowly the work was going.

The old roof over the back half of the house was still in place, and the clock was ticking down toward winter.

What dawned on me as I gazed up toward to the peak of the rafters was that the ones from the back – which were about to disappear – secured the ones at the front of the house, the half of the roof that would have to stay well in place into late spring or early summer. A few of those charred rafters would actually be remaining like forever, a nod to history and all that.

In a flash, the urgency of the new laminated ridge pole and supporting columns made sense. Without them, the whole roof would come crashing down and, in turn, there would be nothing to hold up the new one. One earlier contractor’s proposal for premade trusses to create a gambrel roof on both sides now became comprehendible – so that’s what he meant? We weren’t exactly communicating, and his results wouldn’t have been our first choice. As we were hearing, not every carpenter today knows how to frame a roof from scratch.

~*~

The key to achieving this was a recommended custom-made laminated veneer lumber ridge pole running the length of the house. Or more accurately, three pieces that would be joined together once they were inside and raised into position. Each one was 1¾-by-14-inches by 40-feet and weighed 280 pounds.

In addition, another custom-made LVL 3½-by-3½-inches by 26-feet was delivered for the remaining supporting column. That one would run down the cavity where our second chimney had been, the bricks that had been on the verge of collapse when we bought the place.

~*~

The new ridge pole would have to slip in where the rafters from each side were now overlapping. What would hold them up as he sawed them asunder? The answer was temporary framing underneath.

We were really, really glad Adam knew what he was doing, though we suspect he was losing some sleep over it. We do know he was doing his research and some thorough calculations.

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The electrical line coming into our house had to be moved to one side of the gable to allow for the ridge pole to come into the house. That meant getting the utility to come out for a free service.

Inside, our contractor was making cuts accurate to one-sixteenth of an inch. Sometimes the beam below, cut in the early 19^th century, varied by a half-inch within the length of the two-by-sixes they would be supporting.

We were beginning to appreciate the fact that Adam was our contractor and not just our carpenter/electrician. He was making the arrangements and phone calls. Viking Lumber was making nearly daily deliveries from Machias.

After working largely solo, he lined up a crew to manage the pieces into the upstairs floor and then higher once inside. There was also the matter of a rented lift, positioned outside.

A lot of coordination had to come into place, even before discovering the power line coming into the house needed to be moved. Hello, Versant?

He had additionally expertly erected scaffolding by himself.

At that point, it really felt like this was happening.

So here we were, Week Four, the end of October, and the laminates were arriving – all four pieces. Well, make that five – Hammond Lumber had ordered a wrong size for the column and had to rush the corrected order down to our site.