As part of the renovation for our Studio cottage exterior, we had to remove an awkward awning that hung over the door and left us with a misshapen roof. But that wasn’t the last of our problems: we also had to deal with a massive old cable dish and a rusted out cupola that was home to ten dead bats. Yuck!
We knew we had to redo the entire roof, but we didn’t know about all the existing damages that we were in for. Opening up an old roof is like opening up Pandora’s Box — you have no idea what you’re going to get!
We started by stripping all the old shingles off and discovered that they were attached to bare wood.
This is totally insufficient for the the demands of a Lake Placid winter! The region can get up to fifty feet of snow and -40 below zero. When fifteen feet of that snow is on the roof, there’s no telling how much impact it can take before caving in.
Beyond this issue with the wood, we also encountered insulation coming up from the inside of the studio.
The wood boards that were supposed to be containing the insulation were rotted and gnawed through by ants.
It was a total mess, and we had to replace everything.
We traded the old wood for new plywood and laid that on top of the insulation.
Once all the new plywood was applied, we covered the whole thing with ice and water shield.
All of these finished layers set the stage for the shingles: 30 year Cambridge Architectural Shingles in dual black from Land Lumber here in Lake Placid.
Here’s a list of other materials we used:
- Ice and water shield
- Drip edge
- Nails
- Nail gun
- Hammer
- Compressor
- Hose
- Scissors
- Utility knife
- Chalk line
- Staple gun
- Pencils
- Felt marker
Once all the sides of the roof were fully shingled, we tackled the corners.
For an in-depth look at laying out shingle strips, take a look at this video from This Old House general contractor Tom Silva.
Renovating the roof on our Studio cottage was a much bigger job than we anticipated because we uncovered a lot of existing damage we had no control over. But because we started from scratch, we now have a beautiful, strong, totally weatherproof roof that will last for a very long time.
