A Dog House Part 4: Completed

another gift from the house,
 a bundle of leftover shingles

The final steps of our dog house build are finally here!

We learned how to put a roof on from Tom Silva of This Old House ("TOH") fame.  If you want some great tips on making roofing easy, I highly recommend checking out the How To section of the TOH website.

Mr. DIY cutting off the excess tar paper

plastic covering the tar strip

Each row of shingles contains a strip of tar down the middle.  The new row of shingles lies on top of the tar strips and as the sun heats the roof the tar melts and adheres the shingles together.

After laying the first row of shingles we realized the tar strips on these shingles were covered with a plastic film.  These shingles had been laying outside for who knows how many years so this plastic film was stuck tight and a real challenge to peel off.  At first, quite a few expletives filled the air. Then Mr. DIY discovered an efficient method to peel 'em utilizing our pocket knives, so thanks to him this tedious activity didn't add too much time to the project.

Once the roof was applied we added a few layers of paint and voila, the house is complete!  Mr. DIY has dreams of adding a few additional design touches to the exterior, so we might do a "return-to" blog in the future.

a final view from the porch

a final view from the front

that roof's on a hinge

Thanks for stopping by our neck of the DIY neighborhood. And as our favorite neighbor Mr. Rogers used to say, "You always make each day a special day for me, by just being you. There's only 1 person in this WHOLE world like you; that's you yourself, and people can like you exactly the way you are.  I'll be back next time. Bye-bye!"

Bye-bye neighbor!