Project House, Phase 1: Replace the roof

I’ve not been about much this month. My apologies for not keeping up with responding to comments and posts. This is because the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity. For one thing, we finally got our act together and began work on the house. The first big job that needed doing was the roof.

The roof was a cheap and nasty MDF slate affair. The original tiles that covered the cottage, which would have matched the neighbouring cottages and houses, were lost. The roof had not weathered the years well. Repairs had been bodge jobs, and it leaked, so the walls on the first floor suffered from damp. This meant that we couldn’t plaster or paint them, because they’d be ruined in six months by water damage.

We decided to replace the cheap pseudoslates with the real thing, and to have the front porch and bay window fitted with proper mini-roofs as well. (I think of the bay window roof as a hat.)

The scaffolders arrived at 8 AM on a Monday morning.


The old roof, from the back, post-scaffolding and pre-roofing.

( +12 images showing the transformation )

Now that all this is is (almost) done, we can feel confident about redecorating and repairing the interior of the house, as well as repainting the exterior. And once we’ve recovered from paying the bill (yowch), we can think about Phase 2: Converting the conservatory into a livable room.

In conclusion, responsible home ownership is ruddy exhausting. Also, expensive. Also also, why was it so exhausting even though all I did was organising the contractors, make a lot of coffee and answer questions about what I wanted?

At least it looks nice! I think? Reassurance would be most welcome.