The Roof is On!

Well, since it rained all last weekend, we had to wait until Tuesday night before we could take the tarp off. After I got home from work, we were able to get the tar paper tacked down and the drip edge finished. Then, my parents went to visit my aunt in San Diego for a couple days. They came back to our house Friday night and dad and I installed the shingles on Saturday. It took us most of the day to get all the components cut and installed. After we were done, we installed the door and cleaned up for a couple hours. I still have some trim to install and caulk all the joints before painting it to match the house. After that I'll have to run the electric too. My parents left for home this morning after spending 3 weeks down here visiting and building the shed.

Trip to Cabela's

Since it was raining, we loaded up in the Jeep and headed to Cabela's in Glendale. I took a bunch of pictures of all the animals.

It's Not Supposed to Rain in Phoenix!!!

We got up on Friday morning and before we could even start work, it was raining. It was bad enough fighting the record cold temperatures all week, but RAIN??? The rain continued all day Friday and into Saturday morning. By noon the rain stopped, but it was damp enough that we were not able to get any work done. Sunday morning we got up and installed the trim around the edge of the roof in about an hour. Then, the skies began to turn dark and before we knew it, the rain was coming down again. We got soaked trying to get the tarp pulled up and covering the roof. We placed blocks up top and bungee corded sacks with firewood to hold the corners down. So much for finishing up the shed this weekend.

Continuing Work on the Shed

On Thursday we made quite a bit of progress. In the morning I started with installing blocking between the rafters while my dad added some framing for installing z-flashing and siding on the ends of the shed.





From there, we installed the z-flashing and finished with getting the rest of the siding installed on the ends.







As we finished with this step, the "inspector" came out and put her stamp of approval on what we were doing.



Now we were ready to mark the ends of the rafters with a chalk line and cut them off so they were all even. In the next two pictures you can see my dad drawing the vertical lines after we marked them and I follwed him with the saw and cut them off.





At this point, we were ready to start putting up the sheating on the roof. We got this installed fairly fast as I cut and handed the pieces up and my dad screwed them down.







We managed to finish all the roof sheating just before dark.

Rock Shopping and Canal Walk

My dad wanted some Arizona rocks for making a flower garden on the farm in Iowa. We took a day off from building the shed on Wednesday and took a road trip. We were able to find a few places to get a good assortment of rocks. For lunch we stopped at Long John Silvers and ate a bunch of fish.



In the afternoon, we went for a walk from our house over to the canal that runs past our backyard. My dad has been wanting to go over there and check things out.



Once we crossed the canal over the walkway by the SR51, we walked on the top of the dam on the other side. As we went along, there were tons of quail hustling around between the bushes. I got a good picture of 5-6 of them, but we must have seen over 100.



As we got up behind our house, you can see our backyard and the rafters from the shed.



My dad was having fun and I could barely keep up with him.



Here's a view down 40th street.



Here is a picture of the exit signs and one of looking back across the walkway.