The Roof

After years of deliberation, the roof at Stonepile is nearly rebuilt. After years of wondering how, we have done it with red cedar, better than it has ever been done before, and more expensively than I would have ever believed. But it has been done 'right.' It will not leak in my lifetime, as full and long as I can imagine it to be. The entire roof has been surfaced with a water and ice shield material from, appropriately, Grace, and then with 30 pound roofing felt, and then with the shingles from the forests of British Columbia. The lead flashing around the chimney has been completely redone, the rotten raker boards have been replaced, every valley flashed with copper and 'woven' with compound, beveled cuts in the shingles. We can be justly proud that the job has been done so well. The cost? I don't know because the bills are not all in, but more than a year at private day school, and less than a year at Princeton, so far. The shingles themselves are no further apart than a dime, tighter than I might have done them myself. This roof will keep us dry, and keep us thinking that we have done right by Stonepile. Amen!