Thursday, December 8, 2016

A New Roof for Promise

Promise is our rescue dog that we rescued from the Animal Shelter in Lake Charles. She's been living at Our Maker's Acres Family Farm for quite a while and she inherited "Cutie Pie's" dog house. Cutie Pie was a cute puppy that we got for Benjamin that went missing.  We think maybe someone picked her up.  Promise doesn't seem to mind that "Cutie Pie" is stenciled over the door to her dog house, but it just may be that she can't read.

The roof to her dog house was in need of repair.  Over the years the roof has just dilapidated.  This past Saturday poor Promise was in her dog house, but I noticed the rain was falling inside on her.  For shame!  I started to put a 'blue tarp' on her roof, but that is a short-term fix and I wanted to get this thing done the right way - or the best way that an unskilled carpenter can do.  First, we pulled the roof off.  it was rotten and in bad shape.

Both sides of the broken roof
The roof is a simple design.  All you need is two pieces of plywood screwed into a 2x4 positioned across the top to hold both sides together.


I like to salvage things and give old things new life.  A good friend of mine had given me some cabinet doors that he was going to throw away and I had them stored up in the rafters of the barn. This project would be perfect for them, and I'm glad I remembered that they were there.  The cabinet doors nested together perfectly.


I had some left-over architectural roofing shingles in the attic from when we had roofed our home and I sent Benjamin up to the attic to retrieve about 6 shingles.


The 2x4 that held the roof together was still in good shape, so we reused it.  18 wood screws later, we had framed up the roof.  It was solid and should last a good number of years.


We nailed shingles to the roof decking and then installed the roof back on the dog house.  Promise was happy with the new roof and promptly went inside out of the rainy weather.


This is one of the nuisances of home-ownership or dog house ownership - there are always maintenance issued to contend with.  Fortunately, this repair was cheap (free) and quickly done.

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