Roof Part 2

Saturday, Aug 25th

We were really hoping to finish the roof today. But it didn't happen. 

The valley (more brown piece running up the crevice of the roof) was installed last week but we didn't get the very top part done because it still needed felt and it got to dark and we knew we didn't have the "right" sheets to put up anyways. So this morning Kory, Hunter and I started by laying the felt across the garage roof and then the ice shield. Then we began laying out the sheets over the garage. When we got to the valley Kory didn't want to have to cut the diagnal ends quite yet so we went to the other side. 

It didn't take us to long till we got to the valley, had to install the valley and then started cutting the diagnol pieces. But we got this side completely done! We do need to put the ridge cap on the top but can't do that till we finish the other side. We've also got to put the roof on over the back of the garage that is also the garags back door overhang.  It's pretty small and shouldn't take that long. 

We went to finish the front of the house and realized we were out of the "valley" piece. Ugh.... So frustrated with this company! So Kory and Hunter then spent the rest of the night putting the screws into what we had alread laid out. 

I really, really hope that we can get the rest of the roof done in one more Saturday! 

Painting Hunter's Room

Our first bedroom is so close to being done! I can hardly believe it. Kory has worked almost everynight this past week trying to get it finished. He painted the ceiling twice in one night!

The following evening he primed and painted our walls. 

 Then we hung the baseboards and installed a light! 

WooHoo we can see after dark in this room now. 

Another night we taped off the walls so that the baseboards could be painted. 

This took FOREVER, just saying.... 

And then it was done! I love the colors I chose. I love the way it turned out. 

We're going to install the closets this week and then I'm moving some kiddo's in. 

Can not wait!

Roof Part 1

 Saturday, August 18th came bright and early. At 6:30 in the morning (yep it was still dark) Kory, Hunter and I were on the roof scraping off shingles. Maddie had just left for her first volleyball tournament. Lucky her!

We worked and worked and worked! By 10 that morning most of the shingles had been removed on the part of the roof that we were working on. The sheeting underneath those shingles wasn't the best so a roofer friend told us to just lay new sheeting on top and we'd be fine. So that's what we started doing. However, when we came to the part of the roof that the old swamp cooler use to sit that leaked for many years we almost fell through the roof! So Hunter and Kory pulled those nasty sheets off giving me some skylights!

Removing those old sheets caused the roof to not have the same thickness so Kory cut strips of board and tacked them onto the trusses (same width as the 1st layer sheet was), then he was able to nail on the new sheet. It wasn't terribly hard just super time consuming. Working on the roof in 98+ weather was NOT fun either. Just sayin......

Finally it was time to "felt" the roof. 

A different roofer friend came over to help!

Thank you!

He showed us a few tricks of the trade so things would go a little smoother. 

While we were on the roof, the littles were picking up the shingles that had "missed" the trailer. 

This sweet girl kept finding shingles that looked like animals. 

This was her penguin! 

Unfortunately this was about all we got done for the day. The 19 sheets to go over the garage are wrong.  They are 8 inches to short. Just a $800 loss! 

How did this mistake happen? Let me tell ya! Kory took in a sketching of the house with all the dimensions that he had measured to the roofing company. The salesman then entered those measurements into his computer program. He then printed out an "estimate" for Kory to look at. It said something like, Quantity; 6  length 18'9. There were 13 lines of these quantities and measurements and different lengths. The system is suppose to "minimize" the amounts of sheets needed so we don't have a ton of left overs. Some of the sheets can be cut into 2-3 pieces. Kory looked it over and said something like, you are the one who knows what he's doing.  I guess that's what we need.  Once it was ordered there are no changes and no returns.  Well the salesman swapped the height and length measurements over the garage causing 19 sheets (the bulk of our inventory) to be the wrong size.  To say we weren't happy is an understatement!

Not only were we sent the wrong size but the salesman also left off the moisture/ice roll that goes on the edge of the roof on the bottom. Nor did he send the foam that goes under the bottom of  metal roofing to help with moisture control and it keeps bee's and wasps from being able to nest under the grooves. We had to take a 2 1/2 break to run to Home Depot before we could install a single sheet. So frustrating!

When Kory called the salesman on Monday he was basically told that there is nothing he could do. Because Kory accepted the estimate with the demensions listed incorrectly we are hosed! The worse part is that this company is acting like it's all our fault! They aren't awknowledging that they played any part in this. This is just so wrong. That's like saying Kory was given the correct measurements but entered them wrong into his computer program for a client. But hey..... he sends a layout to the customer and they approve it not knowing that one of those cabinets are wrong. When that client goes to install it and it obviously doens't fit Kory would never say, "well sorry! You accepted my proposal it's your loss!". So dumb! 

What a long day Saturday was! Those dang metal sheets take a ton of screws. Kory was on the roof till 9:30 that night screwing them down. 

Those dang sky lights I had for a moment caused a ginormous mess!

I had just cleaned (swept and even vaccumed) the laundry room that Thursday. Then I get to deal with this AGAIN! I am beyond tired of these kind of messes. I spent most of my day on the roof with Kory and Hunter. I was tired, hot and my muscles were telling me they were done.  

So I left my super messy laundry room alone. 

And cleaned it on Monday. So glad I had this room cleaned that day instead of putting it off!

Monday night we got an unexpected rain storm and our roof leaked. It did NOT leak in our nearly finished bedroom but it did leak around the edges of the new roof. My laundry room's floor was quite wet. So glad I was able to soak up the floor with some towells and didn't have the above mess being soaking wet too!

Fascia

Saturday, August 11

Instead of finishing the boys bedroom like I really, really wanted we worked outside instead. It's great knowing we've almost gone one bedroom finished but how great would it be to have both bedrooms done. The 2nd bedroom is framed, electrical done and also insulated. All it needs is sheet rock, tape and textured and painted. But when it rains.....the roof leaks super bad in that room. We don't want to get that room finished just to have it ruined during the next rain storm. So we need to get the roof fixed. Ughhhhh

Before we can replace the roof the fascia needed to be done. So we spent most of our Saturday hanging it. We took a 4 hour break during the hottest part of the day. Kory needed to meet with a client up on Kolob so we took our little kayaks and hung out at the lake for little bit while we were up there. Got to do something fun knowing school was starting 2 days later. When we got home we finished. The whole front of the house and sides (parts of the house we've replaced with a stick framing) is done. 

Kory has ordered the supplies we need to put the new roof on. Hoping we can get that done in one day, this Saturday. 

The boys room is coming along, just more slowly. The bedroom door is now hung as of Tuesday night. Kory's hoping Thursday/Friday we can do the baseboards and get them painted so he can install the closet. So maybe, just maybe next week my boys can move themselves into that room! I can hardly wait. It will be so nice to have 2 beds, a dresser and hanging rack out of my front room. Hahahaha

Painting

We were gone this past weekend to our last family reunion for the summer. School starts for my kiddo's in 3 days. I was really hoping to get my boys into their room by then but I don't think we're going to make it. We got home from our reunion Sunday night. Kory painted the walls Monday night. Tuesday he worked late and didn't get home until after 8pm so nothing got done. The ceiling got painted Wednesday afternoon/evening.  

 I'm loving the contrast in colors. Its going to look so awesome!

Thursday evening Kory hung the ceiling fan, installed all the electrical outlets and light switches. We've got power again! It's great! He also installed the closet door. 

We've got to install the bedroom door and baseboards and then Kory can paint those. Kory's guys are building the closet drawers and shoe racks this week. Once we've got the base boards on and painted then Kory will install the closet stuff. We are so close!

I am so excited!

Sheetrock and textured!

This past week Kory has been busy. I went to mutual and came home to discover that Kory had fixed the bedroom window! Woo hoo! Now we could finish insulating and sheet rocking that one wall. Working a little bit at nights we got that bedroom ready for our tape and texture guy to come. He was hoping to have it finished today, July 31st but didn't get it quite done. The taping's done now we just have to wait for the texture part. We are leaving for our last family reunion of the summer in 2 days. I was hoping we could have the room painted but I don't think we'll make that. 

I would really, really like to get my boys into this room by the time school starts, on Aug 13th! 

Bugs!

We've got a bug problem. Kinda a big one.

It started about a month ago. The kiddo's and myself started waking up to what looked like mosquito or maybe even spider bites. Everyone would wake up with 2-5 bites some where on there arms or legs. At first I thought we were getting them by being outside playing at the park or on Grandma and Grandpa's yard. But then there were times that we hadn't been outside the night before but we would wake up with fresh bites. So they had to be coming from inside the house! Despite our best effort we couldn't find a single bug (dead or alive) in the house that might cause the bites. So I called our bug lady who came out and sprayed the house for me. The next morning we found one or two dead spiders but mostly it was dead cock roaches. After a week the bites got super worse. I called the bug lady back again and she checked our beds and furniture for bed bugs but together we didn't see a single one or a sign of one. 

Before sending the kids to bed I would spray everyone down with bug spray. I would spray bug spray on their mattresses and on their sheets. Nasty, I know! I used an entire aerosol bottle in one week we were using it so much. When it ran out. I set up my oil diffuser and was diffusing 3-4 different oils at night in their room that was suppose to repel bugs. I also bought a do terra oil bug repellent spray I used on the kids and their beds. We ate garlic and onions in our lunch and dinner meals because that supposedly would deter a body from getting bit. It all seemed to work a little bit but we were still being eaten alive. I spent hours online researching what we could possibly have and what more I could do. 

After hours of research I decided we had "no see um's". They are like a mini mosquito. So tiny it's hard to see them. We ordered some light bulbs that are suppose to attract flying insects and kill them. We discovered a few in the light bulbs that confirmed my theory. But we weren't getting as many bugs I had thought we'd get with them. 

My little man seriously looked like he had the chicken pox!

Before we left for our one week vacay to California he had 70 bites just on his face and one arm. I didn't bother to count his other arm, his torso or his legs. 

Brayden by far got it the worse! The rest of us all had easily 20 bites on us but nothing like what Brayden had. Our trip to California was fabulous! All of our bug bites healed during those 7 days away from home. We all looked normal again by the time we got back. While we were away I tried to do some research on where and how the "no see um's" were coming from. Everywhere I read said they had to have standing water. We have no yard. We have no grass. We have no sprinklers. We water the fruit trees once a week. We do have chickens but we dump out their water once a week and give them fresh. We've had chickens for 2 years now. Why haven't we had this bug issue if that was the cause? The only other standing water I could think of was our swamp cooler. However our swamp cooler drains itself and refills every 7-8 hours. The water drains in the back yard under the fruit trees. We also had the same swamp cooler last year and never had these issues. So again where the heck our these bugs coming from? 

Its hard to see on Emily's face but she has about 10 bites on it. Then there's her leg. In about 3 days of being home from California everyone was covered in bites again. 

After seeing Emily covered I had had it. I was a mom on a mission! I dumped our chicken water out, I scrubbed it with bleach and let it sit in the sun all afternoon before I filled it back up with water for the chickens. While waiting on the hot sun to help sterilize the chickens water bowl I started in on the swamp cooler. I figured one of these water spots was creating our problem. I took that bad boy apart and I sprayed it all down with vinegar and bleach. I filled the compartment where the water sits with 1/2 bottle of bleach hoping to kill any larvae that might be there. Kory thought I had gone crazy until he inspected the screen that sits in front of the swamp cooler fan. I knew it was dirty. It had lots of dirt patches on it. When looking at it closer, it wasn't dirt patches, it was dead "no see um's". They really do look like a mini mosquito's. They are so small that they can fit through a regular window screen. There were hundreds of them on the screen and on top of the swamp cooler. 

After weeks of this dang problem we found our entry. Hallelujah!

"No see um's" live up to 48 days! 

That night I declared war on those bad boys. 

We turned on a movie with the kiddo's that night after dark hoping the light would attract these bugs that you could NOT see! Kory pulled out our bug zapper and made sure it had new batteries and we waited. Sure enough during the movie you would see what looked like a dust particle floating in front of the tv or toward you. When Kory swung the bug zapper at it, the zapper sizzled. We got one! During the 2 hour movie Kory killed more than 50! In all my research I learned that only the females sucked blood. 

We put the kiddo's to bed and then Kory and I sat on our bed with the bug zapper. We started another movie on the ipad with all the lights off. Over the next 2 hours we killed another 50. It was absolutely insane. After a while our eyes adjusted and those no see um's didn't seem so little anymore. In fact most of us can spot one pretty quickly now. 

I continue to pour bleach into our swamp coolers water. Not half a bottle but a good cup or two every couple of days. We are not getting bit as much now. In fact we can go a day or two with no one getting bit. When we wake up with a few bites than I make sure I add some bleach and we pull out the bug zapper at dark again to take care of those nasty things. We continue with the do terra oil and the diffuser too. I have also placed fan boxes by the kids bed and turn them on before bed. The fan blows hard enough that it keeps the no see um's from being able to land on the kiddo's. 

This experience has been CRAZY!

But I am so glad we finally figured out what it was and where they were coming from.