Roofing Choices

This weekend was full of rain. It started on Thursday or Friday and then continued pretty much straight through Sunday evening. Which means there's not a whole lot to do on an exterior house project.

I did clean the basement on Saturday, but that's not very exciting, and I'm not going to show pictures of my creepy basement to you.

If you remember, a while back we had some issues with the roof leaking. Jim put a temporary fix up, and we put a claim in to our insurance company. They did give us some money for it. Not a lot, but enough to lessen the pain.

We have decided to use that money to put up a new roof. And we decided to put up a nice roof. We got a couple of estimates - one by a guy that did the roof at Jim's hobby shop, and one by the company that did the gutters a few years ago - O'Lyn. I thought O'Lyn was going to be way out of the price range, but they actually turned out to be right within the same price as the other estimate.

And I know that they are quick and responsive and professional. When they did the gutters, it was at a time when it was difficult to get contractors to even bid on jobs - everyone was way too busy (with that whole mortgage and lending boom that has now fallen apart. hmmm.).

I think back then I had 3 different estimates done, and O'Lyn was the only one who even responded. At the time, it was an emergency, as one gutter had torn off some soffit boards, so I went ahead with O'Lyn and just had the job done. They were so fast and finished the job in one or two days. So fast, in fact, that they ended up trapping some squirrels that had started to make the opened up wall their home. We had to drill holes in the inside of the kitchen cabinets and bait them out with peanut butter. I think there were 3. They were loud and angry little buggers.



Anyway, because of the past experience and good job and because the estimate was still in the right range, we decided to go with O'Lyn again. This time, as in the last time, they were very prompt with their estimate, put together a professional packet with the quote, and have followed up with phone calls a couple times. They also let Jim bring home some sample boards to pick the right color.

Now, as to the choice of shingles...
We decided to go for the "luxury" shingles and get something that looks like slate. We both wish we could get real slate, but that is not not in the price range, even with the insurance money!

The two shingles in the running were Certainteed's Grand Manor and Carriage House.











Lots of humming and hawing (as my Dad would say). We took walks around the neighborhood and drove around Wellesley looking at roofs.

A Carriage House roof in Natick:



And we used the Certainteed Color View to imagine what the house would look like.
Grand Manor:


Carriage House:


We both felt either one would be acceptable, but Jim had a slight preference for the Grand Manor, and I ended up with a slight preference for the Carriage House. And in this decision, Jim is deferring to me for the final choice.

So as long as the price is equivalent or lower for the Carriage House, that's what we'll do. Wait and see - this could be a quick change compared to our summer-long porch project...