Tear Off and Replace
We finally put a roof on the place over the weekend. Actually, we hired a crew to do it. My only contribution was sitting at the picnic table and helping them with the beer.
Yet the entire ordeal was fairly painless (other than the cost, of course) because the crew completed the complete tear down and replacement in about eight hours total for two days. They also cleaned every nail out of the yard.
There comes a certain satisfaction when something has been completed - especially when it is something that you'd stressed about for some time. For about a year, my wife had been bantering about the roof replacement while I had stubbornly explained that there wasn't any water leaking on our heads. (I knew better, just needed to bicker).
Yet when the work was completed and as I was walking around the yard, the feeling wasn't one of relief; it was sadness.
Sadness comes easy these days, but I wasn't sad over the monetary cost. I was simply sad because it is the last roof we'll be putting on the place. The roof has about a thirty year life - and when I did the math - I understood that I'd never stress about the roof needing replacement again.
Then it struck me that it is all so temporary. The man and woman who first lived here are gone. Their kids moved away, and now it is our place, and in the blink of an eye, we'll be gone, and there will be some couple to take our place. Hell, they probably ain't even born yet.
Temporary. No one will remember. The house won't speak to them about our dogs running around in the backyard, or Matt rolling the basketball down the garage roof and tearing off the gutters, or Jake and Sam running after Melky, never able to catch her.
Call it a curse, but the new roof made me sad.
Tear down and replace.
Perhaps I'm thinking too much into it.
Yet the entire ordeal was fairly painless (other than the cost, of course) because the crew completed the complete tear down and replacement in about eight hours total for two days. They also cleaned every nail out of the yard.
There comes a certain satisfaction when something has been completed - especially when it is something that you'd stressed about for some time. For about a year, my wife had been bantering about the roof replacement while I had stubbornly explained that there wasn't any water leaking on our heads. (I knew better, just needed to bicker).
Yet when the work was completed and as I was walking around the yard, the feeling wasn't one of relief; it was sadness.
Sadness comes easy these days, but I wasn't sad over the monetary cost. I was simply sad because it is the last roof we'll be putting on the place. The roof has about a thirty year life - and when I did the math - I understood that I'd never stress about the roof needing replacement again.
Then it struck me that it is all so temporary. The man and woman who first lived here are gone. Their kids moved away, and now it is our place, and in the blink of an eye, we'll be gone, and there will be some couple to take our place. Hell, they probably ain't even born yet.
Temporary. No one will remember. The house won't speak to them about our dogs running around in the backyard, or Matt rolling the basketball down the garage roof and tearing off the gutters, or Jake and Sam running after Melky, never able to catch her.
Call it a curse, but the new roof made me sad.
Tear down and replace.
Perhaps I'm thinking too much into it.
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