Going Gray

Building the Momplex has been very different than building our home.

Unlike our home where we choose things that we like and can afford, at the Momplex we are choosing things that make sense.

You see, we hope Mom lives in the Momplex for a long long time, until she's 100 years old! And while she lives in the Momplex, we do not want her worrying about maintenance.

I think a nice house is a well maintained house. One that is properly cared for. And because Mom might be too old to get up on the roof and fix it (heck I am too!) in ten or twenty years, we went with the roofing that will last 40 or 50 years. And that's a metal roof.

And as I looked at all the colors of roofing, I asked myself, what color will I still like in 40 or 50 years? Barn red? Denali Green? Tahoe Blue? I could not be certain.

So we went gray.

With the metal roofing panels comes the trim and accessories. Here we have the ridge cap and rake flashing. I'll show you where they all go.

We also opted to add fully wrapped fascia - so Mom doesn't have to get up on a lift and paint the fascia in 10 years - and you also so here the drip edge.

It all starts by rolling tar paper over the plywood roof. This get's stapled down directly to the plywood. You start at the bottom and work your way upward.

We actually also add the fully wrapped fascia underneath as well.

But then we took it back off because of how we plan to finish out our sofits (or the underside of the roof overhangs). We'll get to that in a bit - the sofits are now on order and should be here any day.

We opted for the exposed fastener system just because it was a $1000 less than the standing seam metal roof and with the height of the roof, you will never be able to see the difference.

Work is always easier done on the ground instead of on the roof. So the Ram predrills holes in the metal roof.

He's smart. he drills holes through all the sheets so the screws are attached in pattern, and saves time. No fun drilling every single sheet!

So the sheets are carefully hauled up to the roof on a Ram-made pallet and layed on the roof. And it's time to add screws.

Aren't you glad we predrilled the holes in pattern?

And by the end of the day, the front of the Momplex is fully gray.

The back, with the added roof over the garages, will be a little more work. We are going to save that for another day.

And I just want to apologize to you for the lack of photos up on the roof.

Because this is as far as I venture on that roof.

And hopefully, this is as far as Mom will ever have to go too.