Up on the Rooftop

After the successful use of power tools, I was promoted to painter. Laura (the leader) had Laura (the worker bee) and I sprawled out in the middle of the street (actually a hill unpaved and so steep no car in its right mind would dare take it on), painting portions of the lumber that would be placed on the trusses to complete the roof and close the house in.

We only had one roller-handle between us, so there was a good deal of creativity using branches, scrap pieces of lumber and when all else failed, our hands to roll the brush and spread the paint. We did a thorough job and made it to a late lunch. I was feeling pretty good about things, so when Laura (the leader) asked worker bee Laura and I to go up on the roof to lay the paper, tar and roofing stuff, we said, "sure!"

I learned something very quickly while laying on my stomach, head first near the edge of the roof holding nails for Craig and Matt to pound...I am OK with heights, but I DO NOT enjoy the sloping angle. I felt like I was slipping and was going head first!

Tim was in charge of teaching WB (as in worker bee, it's shorter!) Laura and I how to install the roof and much to my dismay, he was intent on us learning by doing. This meant that WB Laura (who shared my slope-phobia) and I had to hang dangerously close to the edge of the roof as we pounded in roofing nails to hold down the paper and then the roofing itself. There was a lot of anxiety-sweat, let me tell you. I will also admit that I was kind of mad, mostly because I was really feeling as if I was about to freak out over the whole ordeal.

Not surprisingly, once I relaxed, things went just fine. No one fell off the roof, had to be rescued or tripped and nearly broke their neck. In fact, we had a great view of the ocean from our elevation and pounded in the last nail, finishing the house, just as the sun set.

I decided that I was so cool with the whole roofing deal that I went over to another job site early the next morning to help with their roof because there was not a willing volunteer to climb up there. It was a flat roof, no incline. We had that gem rolled out in 2-hours, piece of cake!

You'd think I have been doing it all my life looking at the picture here! By the way, this photo is courtesy of the SOTHUMC website, nice job, peeps!