shop9

8 April 2001... Other things have gotten in the way of progress in the last few weeks but I am only about two full days away from having a completed roof!

The mansard roof is a DOG... I did not have access to scaffolding or help for this work... It was many repeated cycles of bringing up 4 shingles and nailing them in place... Wind was the enemy at first but in the past three days it is the heat... By Noon today, the roof was too hot to sit on... On Tuesday I should be installing the ridge vent...

On the roof side you see here I actually had to tear off the old felt underlayment that had weathered and torn far too much to use...

If you were to compare the color of the siding now to what it looked like six weeks ago, you would know that I am really concerned about getting the primer coat on ASAP. If I wait any longer I will probably need to pre-treat the wood... I sure don't want to have to do that... If all goes well I'll be painting on Wednesday.... Wish me luck.

25 April 2001 - It looks like I am really behind on updates. I have applied primer to the outside of the building and set the bottom floor door and windows. Installed an 8,000 BTU air conditioner. Installed all the insulation. And today, I completed installing 46 panels of sheet rock. The only sheet rock left to install is that of the ceiling of the first floor. I expect to have a few friends come by to help me install them...

The biggest problem I had while installing the insulation was vision! I could not find a face mask that would not cause my glasses to fog over or be covered with droplets of water. But the mask was imperative so I just plugged on regardless.

I had old Arrow brand staple guns but saw the Black & Decker Powershot... It is still a manual tool but much easier to use because the downward force is directly over the staple... Just the opposite of conventional tools.

On the second floor there was a bit of a problem... I needed to glue as well as screw the sheet rock to the rafters. Therefore I could not staple the flaps of the vapor barrier in the conventional way... I stapled them to the sides of the rafters... Hopefully that does not harm the insulation value too much...

I seem to recall that here is supposed to be a wall board primer coating that is supposed to serve as a vapor barrier... If Lowes has it, I'll use it.

Installing the sheet rock on the first floor was no real problem.... Figuring out the cut-outs for all the outlet boxes took some time... About the largest gaps I have to fill are about 3/8th inches. I think that standard 'decorator plates' will cover the boo-boos.

Since I already had a Dremel MotoTool, I used RotoZip bits to make the cut-outs. They look like 1/8" dia. drill bits but cut on the side. They really zip thru the board extremely quick.

I thought I would need help to do the ceiling of the second floor but it turned out to be easy enough because the largest panel is only 32"x48" and the ceiling low enough so that I could hold the panel up in place with one hand and then manipulate a "T" prop stick up under the panel to jam it in place.