The roof over my head

For some reason, I never got around to blogging about my second major home improvement last year: my new roof. (The first being my new air conditioner.) I shall rectify this omission forthwith, beginning with an overall shot of the house from the street, shortly after the work was completed. This doesn't really do it justice -- even if you click on it for the larger view -- because the color comes off as grey when it's actually blue. The closer-up before and after pix after the jump show it better.


As you can see, it was a significant color change, from a dirty reddish-brown to a dark blue. As such, I had to get it approved by my homeowners' association. I wanted something a little different; three quarters of the houses in the neighborhood are roofed in various shades of brown and tan, and the rest shades of gray to black. And blue has always been my favorite color.

Before and after (click to enlarge)

They did the whole roof in one (somewhat long) day, after previously delivering the shingles by crane to the roof. I wish I could have been around to watch this process; having observed my ex in the processing of reroofing three houses, I'm used to it being a much longer job. But then, roofing techniques have changed a lot since the last one he did (around 1987, if memory serves), and my ex didn't have a crane. Not to mention that two of those roofing jobs involved houses around 90-110 years old, with porch roofs and additions to deal with.

Anyway, I was happy with how it turned out, and even happier that I got it done last year, before I got laid off.