Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Saturday, May 10, 2008
I Want a Pet
I want a pet,
a cute little pet,
the best pet in the world!
I want a pet!
If you can guess my favorite pet,
the pet that I want,
you'll be a mind reader,
with a magician at your side!
No one has ever guessed my favorite pet,
my very, very favorite pet.
So I might as well tell you,
my very secret pet.
THE DESERT FOX,
also known as the FENNEC,
...
But I'll never have one :(
Dedicated to the best mommy in the world (for Judy)
by Jesi Porcelli
Friday, April 25, 2008
Rebuilding an overhang roof
Judy, my lovely wife, had been asking me for over a year to fix the overhang in front of our laundry room.
As always I had look at it several times, from many angles, over many months :).
Finally, she decided to get estimates from contractors, and we got a few.
So, after meeting with two of the contractors I got a much better idea about how to rebuild it. My main problem was that Home Depot did not sell the same type of roof that we had and I had to go look somewhere else for it.
(I like Home Depot because I can spend hours in the store trying to figure out what I need. You cannot do the same in a lumber yard, you would look pretty silly - at least that is the way I feel).
Anyway, the weekend came (Saturday April 12th) and I started talking with my neighbor Mike. He said something like: that is a piece of cake to do. Put some 2x4's here and there and that's it...
I started to slowly take apart the overhang to see how everything was done so I could put it back together in a similar way. Once I saw that it was not that complicated, I proceeded to take it all apart.
Then, it was off to Home Depot to buy the material! My first of more than 20 or so trips to the store just for this project (I wonder how much I spent in gas).
Early Sunday morning my Dad came over to my house and we started putting everything together. By the end of the day we had an almost-finished roof. The biggest part missing was the roofing material itself.
It looked really nice and I was very happy with how it came out. Really happy.
My problem was that I bought a 4x4 beam because that is how the old roof was built. But the span of the beam is 12 feet and the 4x4 was too flexible for my taste.
From then on I started to think about what to do and about how to fix it. I went to Home Depot again but they would not tell me what I should use for a 12' span. I went to a lumber yard and they gave me a couple of ideas but could not get a definite answer either. I talked with my boss (Ross) and he told me he had done a similar project with 2-2x6 pieces of wood. I went online and found some recommendation for latices and some other information on how to size beams.
It became clear that 4x4 was not a good idea.
I talked to my dad and told him I wanted to replace the existing beam.
He said, that is crazy, too much work. Just buy a 2x6 and put it in front of the 4x4. I had thought about this option and almost went with it.
But then thinking more about it I decided to take everything apart and replace the beam.
I went to a lumber yard and bought an engineered beam 1 3/4" by 12" by 12 feet ($63). A lot more expensive than regular wood.
I cut it in half, glued it together and put 4 3/8 luggs to help it stay together.
I took EVERYTHING apart by myself and started rebuilding it again. My neighbor Andy gave me a hand putting the beam back on, but I did the rest by myself. I was dead by the end.
When my dad came by the following weekend the beam was replaced and almost everything was back up.
So we started working on laying down the roll on roofing I had bought and putting down the lap cement which is really sticky. We worked non-stop until about 3PM when we sat down for a barbecue. All I did after that was just clean up the tools and the patio and put everything back in the garage. I did not have any more energy for anything else that day.
Sunday, I thought I was going to only work a little bit putting the gutter up and a few other details, which required another trip to Home Depot... Well, those details and another gutter I had to fix in the front of the house took me most of the day...
Two very LONG weekends in all, but the roof looks great. The beam I put is REALLY over engineered and it can probably hold the hold house. It does not even bend with my Dad and I standing on top of the little roof :)
It was a great experience.
Additional Notes
The total cost of the project was about $500.
You can see all the pictures from the project in my picasa web album here: http://picasaweb.google.com/esteban.porcelli/Overhang
I created this page with Google Docs - a very cool application.
Judy, my lovely wife, had been asking me for over a year to fix the overhang in front of our laundry room.
As always I had look at it several times, from many angles, over many months :).
Finally, she decided to get estimates from contractors, and we got a few.
So, after meeting with two of the contractors I got a much better idea about how to rebuild it. My main problem was that Home Depot did not sell the same type of roof that we had and I had to go look somewhere else for it.
(I like Home Depot because I can spend hours in the store trying to figure out what I need. You cannot do the same in a lumber yard, you would look pretty silly - at least that is the way I feel).
Anyway, the weekend came (Saturday April 12th) and I started talking with my neighbor Mike. He said something like: that is a piece of cake to do. Put some 2x4's here and there and that's it...
I started to slowly take apart the overhang to see how everything was done so I could put it back together in a similar way. Once I saw that it was not that complicated, I proceeded to take it all apart.
Then, it was off to Home Depot to buy the material! My first of more than 20 or so trips to the store just for this project (I wonder how much I spent in gas).
Early Sunday morning my Dad came over to my house and we started putting everything together. By the end of the day we had an almost-finished roof. The biggest part missing was the roofing material itself.
It looked really nice and I was very happy with how it came out. Really happy.
My problem was that I bought a 4x4 beam because that is how the old roof was built. But the span of the beam is 12 feet and the 4x4 was too flexible for my taste.
From then on I started to think about what to do and about how to fix it. I went to Home Depot again but they would not tell me what I should use for a 12' span. I went to a lumber yard and they gave me a couple of ideas but could not get a definite answer either. I talked with my boss (Ross) and he told me he had done a similar project with 2-2x6 pieces of wood. I went online and found some recommendation for latices and some other information on how to size beams.
It became clear that 4x4 was not a good idea.
I talked to my dad and told him I wanted to replace the existing beam.
He said, that is crazy, too much work. Just buy a 2x6 and put it in front of the 4x4. I had thought about this option and almost went with it.
But then thinking more about it I decided to take everything apart and replace the beam.
I went to a lumber yard and bought an engineered beam 1 3/4" by 12" by 12 feet ($63). A lot more expensive than regular wood.
I cut it in half, glued it together and put 4 3/8 luggs to help it stay together.
I took EVERYTHING apart by myself and started rebuilding it again. My neighbor Andy gave me a hand putting the beam back on, but I did the rest by myself. I was dead by the end.
So we started working on laying down the roll on roofing I had bought and putting down the lap cement which is really sticky. We worked non-stop until about 3PM when we sat down for a barbecue. All I did after that was just clean up the tools and the patio and put everything back in the garage. I did not have any more energy for anything else that day.
Sunday, I thought I was going to only work a little bit putting the gutter up and a few other details, which required another trip to Home Depot... Well, those details and another gutter I had to fix in the front of the house took me most of the day...
Two very LONG weekends in all, but the roof looks great. The beam I put is REALLY over engineered and it can probably hold the hold house. It does not even bend with my Dad and I standing on top of the little roof :)
It was a great experience.
Additional Notes
The total cost of the project was about $500.
You can see all the pictures from the project in my picasa web album here: http://picasaweb.google.com/esteban.porcelli/Overhang
I created this page with Google Docs - a very cool application.
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