DIY Dream Home – Setting Trusses and Installing The Roof
The past few months have been a whirlwind here at Fletcher Creek in more ways that one and it’s high time I gave you all a DIY dream home update!
It’s pretty incredible how much hard work goes into building a home and all the materials needed that will never be seen. The excavating, pouring footings, framing walls and setting trusses… a lot of work. Not only is it a lot of work, but self building a home is SLOW going! Thats why I really want to take a minute to say thank you so much for continuing cheer us on and for showing your support! You guys are so encouraging and truly the BEST!
Last Fall we worked on setting trusses and installing the roof on our home before winter hit Northern Michigan….and I’m happy to say we made it… THANKS to my hard working husband, our son, and many wonderful friends and family members who pitched in and VERY generously lent a hand.
We worked on installing the mud-sill, trusses, sheathing the roof, building and putting up the rakes and shingling the roof on our DIY Dream Home. I filmed whenever I could, but most days the guys had me operating the SkyTrak which was totally new to me…and a LOT of fun! Was I nervous the entire time? YES…but I love learning something new and I’m always up for the challenge:)
The guys built a large platform with railings to go on the end of the SkyTrek forks so they could safely work on the roof from the platform for the majority of the time. It rained, hailed, sleeted and snowed on and off for some of September and most of October and November, so I felt a lot better about them when they were working off the platform.
My View From The SkyTrek Seat
We rented the SkyTrek multiple weekends in a row.
We were pushing hard to get it done and it’s a bit of a blur now, but boy oh boy are we relieved that it’s DONE and we have a roof!
We are so grateful to everyone who came and helped install the roof!
The shingles are the first material we installed that will actually be visible. I spent months researching and trying to decide on a roofing product. You wouldn’t think choosing a roofing product would be difficult, but wow, there are a lot of options and sorting through them all definitely felt a bit overwhelming.
I really love the look of a cedar shake roof more than anything (but they’re such a fire hazard). I found some amazing cedar composite shake roofing products, they were well over our budget , so we opted for architectural shingles instead.
We chose Malarkey Legacy Shingles in the color “Natural Wood”. They have a lifetime shingle warranty and a 130 miles per hour enhanced wind warranty. We joke all the time about how we should have named our homestead “Windy Ridge” instead of “Fletcher Creek Cottage” because the winds can be brutal up on the hill, so a wind warranty was really important to us.
We ordered our windows months and months ago, but unfortunately they didn’t arrive before snowfall. We needed a way to keep the snow and rain from coming into our house through all the window openings and ruining our subfloor, so we used house wrap to cover the window openings and boarded them up with scraps of OSB. That worked great! We only had one winter storm where the snow came up over the rafters that are still open. Aaron shoveled out the snow and it was fine.
Over the long winter months, we spent our spare time planning details of so many things, getting quotes on materials and just as soon as the weather is above freezing we plan to be out there, daily working on the house as much as we possibly can. Spring/Summer/Fall means GO TIME!
We’ve got interior walls to frame, electrical and plumbing to run, windows to flash and install, soffit, facia and siding to install and a whole lot of concrete to pour for our garage floor, basement walkout patio, and the entire front wrap around porch floor and the list goes on!
Even though we are a long way from the finish line, we’re so grateful for what we’ve accomplished up until this point. It feels amazing to have come this far. We have a lot of work ahead of us and we’re excited to take you along for the process!
Be sure to check out the YouTube channel for a more in depth look our DIY build journey!
