Inching Along

So it's now time to start adding the OSB sheathing to the roof.  This is something neither one of us have ever done so it's a bit daunting, to say the least!  Those sheets of OSB are heavy and the roof is high!  We needed something to help us get them up so Rick constructed another gizmo - something else he found in one of our many books on homebuilding.

It worked great and made it so we don't have to lift the OSB so much.

But as we're installing the first sheets we start to notice that things aren't so square.  We stand back and realize that in the days since the trusses went up, the sun, rain and wind have caused them to start to warp.  After much mulling and discussion and standing back and just staring, we decided we needed to check the space between each truss as we go so out came the spacers.  This turned into a pretty tedious job.

Two days later and all we've managed to get up has been 7 1/2 sheets.  The weather has played a part in that (you can see the clouds in the pictures) but our caution has played a bigger part.  When you're not quite sure what you're doing, you tend to go slower - and we certainly have been going slow.  Do we go all the way to the peak as we go or do we do one or two courses all the way around?  How are we going to get to the top?  What is it going to feel like to be up there even using 2 x 4 cleats?  Are there any other gizmos we could build that will help (no).  What will we do if we get all the way around and things don't match up?  The discussions have been endless. 

The OSB will only go to the edge of the walls.  On the overhangs we will use three 1 x 4s under the roofing material so we decided that maybe the best course of action would be to install the first 1 x 4 all the way around which would allow us to make sure all the trusses are spaced correctly and will give us an edge on which to set the first course of OSB - plus it's an easy task <G>   So yesterday, that's what we did.

This phase seem endless.  There's a LOT of OSB to install!  So I've found myself remembering how much gravel I had to shovel and how long that took and I realize that we just have to take it one sheet at a time!  Hopefully now that we've gotten this far and are feeling a little more confident, the process will go faster.

As I was getting the pictures ready for this post I came across the folder of pictures from a year ago.  That's when I was shlepping gravel!  It's good to look back and see just how far we have come!  It's encouraging!