The Most Beautiful Roof in the Entire World Passed Inspection!

Even the inspector thought it was beautiful. Now on to paper and metal. We ordered windows and the front door this week. CHA-ching! I need to start cobbing the voids in the walls. Straw bales, being imperfect, when brought together need some "make-up" to fill in the imperfections. It's messy (like mudpies) and somewhat tedious but one can get a lot of thinking done.

I'm a Registered Nurse and like many RNs have a love-hate relationship with the profession (don't worry, the source of the negative feelings is usually NOT the patient). However, last week was Nurse's Week (another Hallmark moment) and Friday was Florence Nightingale's birthday. Instead of taking part in the "festivities" that were sponsored by the powers that be in nursing, a few of us had our own celebration. We went to Javalina's for coffee, conversation and great music. Amber Norgaard was the musician, and she is great. If you get a chance to see her, do. The coincidental thing is that Amber used to make her living as an RN and we could tell that as she was belting out a tune she was longing for the good old nursing days. NOT! We got into an interesting discussion about what it takes to leave something "safe" and strike out on your own. How many of us beat back our passions and are pulled along by the siren song of safety? It was a great Tucson evening.

I've been led to another gifted artist, Amy Steinberg by an unschooling family blog. (If you've read the Intro to this blog, you know we are an unschooling family and I'll probably write more about that at some point.) The song Exactly is amazing. Really listen to it.

And on to the next project.

Getting the roof just right...
takes a lot of work. The style of this roof was mostly my idea. I lost the coin toss (I wanted a Dutch hip) and our previous house had a 3 in 12 gable roof. Serviceable and relatively easy to build, but plain. The roof on this house is 5 in 12, with mini-roofs to help protect the east and west walls and space to provide some attic storage. And it just looks cool. The roof will be galvalume (nonpainted metal panels) with gutters to catch the rain. The gables will also be clad with galvalume. To the right is the picture of the north elevation which I promised. It was taken from the common area between houses which includes a pedestrian walkway.


(l) This is the west side again with it's "mini-roof". (Does anyone have an official name for this?)


(below) And the east side with a close-up of the mini-roof. This has been a lot of work. Look at it closely, give it the respect it deserves. I will be paying for this for the rest of my life.

Now we have to begin the second phase of digging, boooring...but it has to be done.

Until next time...