The Roof, The Roof, The Roof Is All Finished!

Since we are weeks away from the end of 2013, I am happy to announce that we officially crossed the roof off our list our to-dos. 

To refresh your memory, we started with a classic cedar shake roof that was original to our house. Hubby & I decided to replace the roof with GAF Camelot II shingles in Antique Slate (read all about our reasoning here). The crew was fabulous to work with and they provided hours of entertainment for the boys. Over all the roofing job took 6 full days to complete and I love, love, love the new results.

For those of you who know me, that is saying a lot. Yes for the cost I could have had a new master bathroom, but I guess it is called being an adult when you put needs before wants. So we still have a bathroom covered in oodles of polished brass, but the roof is free of leaks and brand spanking new.

We took our sweet time picking the style and to be honest it turned out much better than I could have hoped. The slate gray perfectly matches the front door I painted in the spring and together that pair tones down the orange in the brick. The old cedar was much lighter in tone than new the Antique Slate, which lends a nice depth to the house's facade and take a decade or two off the appearance of the house.

While making the decision process it was hard to come across actual pictures online of the shingles on homes...most were just mock ups provided by GAF. For this reason, I have several detail shots below to help give a better feel of exactly how the shingles appear.

Our lovely roofers did my a favor and covered up the new skylight flashing with shingles...I couldn't stand the shiny plastic tabs.

We selected a black valley and it blends well with the shingles.

The majority of the work occurred in September, but the job wasn't completed in its entirety until November. The reason for the late November finish was that once the new roof was installed, the pitch of our roof was altered (asphalt shakes are significantly thinner than cedar shake) and as a result, rain water was speeding down the side of our roof and overshooting our old gutters. At first we thought that the leaf guard was the culprit and the roofing company came out and installed a sponge-like liner in the gutters in place of the original leaf shield. When that failed, we had to replace the gutters and downspouts with a new oversized version. Happily though, the issue seems to be resolved. So if you are looking to replace your roof but not upgrade your gutters, be advised that the same scenario could occur on your roof (our roofer did cover the cost of new gutters though FYI).

I'm happy to have this need crossed off the list...now I can go back to pinning master bathrooms & walk in closets. Oh sigh…maturity is over rated!

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