Replacing the roof of the wood-store house at our cottage in Sweden Sunday, 15-Mar-26 23:01:00 CET

Sunday, 22-Mar-26 20:34:46 CET

Got all roofboards mounted!

This week, we replaced the roof of the wood-store house. We also visited secondhand shops and art and design museums.

Monday 16 March

Today we had more of the same compared to the recent weekend. The weather was not bad at all, a shy sun. Perfect temperatures for muscle work. We unloaded the roof tiles on the north side of the building. This side is in much worse condition. A substantial part of the tiles was already damaged, and the damage on the roof below was worse compared to the south side.

We moved the tiles to the barn. The idea is to use the good tiles for the root cellar. We worked on that project in September last year. It still has the west side of the roof to be fixed. We will come back to that another time.

When all the tiles were on the ground, all four of us brought a couple of trailers to the barn. Here, the tiles will not freeze into pieces.

When we removed all the tiles from the roof, WB and I tried to sweep the roof clean of dust. It worked, but it was cumbersome.

Last year, we got a couple of metal boxes from friends. The metal comes from an old oil tank. My idea was to cut the boxes into sheets so I could store the metal and use it in various projects. I brought an angle grinder from the Netherlands and tried to cut the metal with it. It did not work. The metal was too thick to be cut conveniently with the angle grinder. Perhaps I need a plasma cutter?

In the evening, I tried to configure my new email server to support multi-domain email. The idea is to replace the old email server and restore the email addresses that were lost on it. I configured DKIM and Dovecot and made certificates. It did not work.

Tuesday 17 March

This day was set aside to go to the city to buy roof boards and various accessories. It was a clear blue sky today, and it was nice. We went to the hardware store and bought corrugated roof boards, ridge plates, downpipes, bargeboards, gutters, pipe holders, gutter end plates, screws, more screws, primer, white paint, and bits. We bought wood beams as well.

We also bought oxalic acid. WB is a carpenter, and he insisted on using oxalic acid to prevent rot from destroying the new roof construction from within. I had never heard of this treatment, but WB was adamant that it was the best way to treat rotten wood. WB is the guy!

After the oxalic acid, we bought a plasma cutter and a leaf blower. It was an expensive day.

When we returned to the cottage, we mixed the oxalic acid in a bucket and applied the liquid to the north roof. We mixed the acid so that it was 10 percent of the water. The mixture was poured from the ridge, and we brushed the roof as it flowed down. The roof has to dry before we can continue to set up the beams that will support the metal roof plates. That is tomorrow.

I read the instructions for the plasma cutter. It had many requirements to fulfill before I could start testing it. Instead, I decided there had to be an end to this active day. There are more days ahead when I can try the plasma cutter, once I am better prepared and more cautious to avoid an accident.

Wednesday 18 March

I slept really well last night. I got 82 points, and I had 44 minutes of deep sleep. When I got out to empty the compost bucket, the sun was shining beautifully on the north side of the wood storehouse. You can see that the oxalic acid has made the wood lighter. We decided to keep the original underlayment of wood chips. This is a traditional building style in this region, and it doesn't look to be in bad condition. Removing the underlayment would feel like ripping off the soul of the roof. It may not be the best decision, but it should be fine under the metal roof boards.

We put up beams on the roof. There was 80 centimeters between each beam. The beams were fastened thoroughly through the wood underlayment to the planks below. Sometimes the planks were challenging to find. DD and WB did the beams work. I handed them the beams.

As soon as the new beams were mounted, it was possible to walk on the roof. So far, we have removed many of the old beams because they were rotten, especially on the north side of the house. The feet can't get any grip on the underlayment. When we poured the oxalic acid water, I noticed that the underlayment is still doing its job. That is nice.

With the beams in place, we could start mounting the roof boards. Here, we noticed we bought too short screws for the roof plates, 35 millimeters. I went to the local hardware store and bought 60-millimeter self-drilling hex head screws (about 2 inches) with a rubber ring.

Then we could continue mounting the roof boards. The screw's ability to drill through the board was questionable. One had to apply force to activate the drill capacity of the screw, and that was challenging. When I sat in a good position near the screw, I could use my muscle strength, and that worked fine. DD also has plenty of muscles, but she preferred to hammer a dent into the board before drilling. When stretching into the board from the side, I couldn't even apply enough force.

We had the ladder lying on the newly mounted boards on the roof. That way, two people could work on the next row of boards from each side. One sitting on the beams and the other on the ladder. The ladder could rest on the scaffold's platform. Here we screwed a beam onto the platform so that it would not slide away. Overall, the scaffold proved crucial to the work on the roof.

WB is essentially a carpenter, and now we switched to working in metal, and he did not like that so much. DD and I took over the brave work on the roof while WB handed us the roof boards. At the end of the day, we started to create a rhythm for the work. We reached two-thirds of the north roof this day.

In the evening, I tried to get the new mail server to work. No success on that project this evening.

Thursday 19 March

Today, we split our activities, such that DD and I went ahead with the roof plates while WB started working on the fascia boards. He will make new fascia boards for all sides of the building. It will look absolutely fantastic.

It was tricky to finish the roof boards because we had too many boards left. There were two possible options: cut off the access board or overlap boards. We decided on overlap, but by how much? We got it figured out and went ahead. It was annoying that the rhythm could not be applied. We had to be creative with where the screws would be placed.

When the roof boards were done, DD went to help WB with the fascia boards.

I continued on the gutters. The challenge here was that the wood boards at the bottom of the roof were not aligned in a straight line. The building is not straight. All four of us came together to discuss possible solutions, and we decided that the gutter would end on the roof of the side building on the left side. I adjusted the brackets until the water flowed down the gutter. It was great.

Here you can see a video of how I spread water on the roof, and how it flows down into the gutter. Little bubbles are travelling down the gutter. At the end of the gutter, the water is poured on the older side building's roof. From here, it flows in the gutter of the side building. The gutter of the side building is in bad condition; it will need to be replaced as well, but that is for another time.

At this point, we were really tired. WB rested, and DD and I broke down the scaffold. We mounted the scaffold's ground frame on the south side of the building. Shoulders and knees were complaining. For the rest, the mood in all of us was great. Things are going well.

I heard on the news that Russia lost 1500 soldiers today. That is almost double the usual daily rate. The failed invasion of Ukraine goes on, and it looks more and more likely that Ukraine will come out of this war with some form of victory. Every two months, Russia is losing as many soldiers as the US lost in the entire Vietnam War. There is no clear Russian constitution stipulating how to proceed when Putin is no more, so the country will be in chaos. Most likely, Russia will be disintegrated into several different countries.

It is not that Ukraine has no challenges; of course, it has.

Trump started a fire in the Middle East that he cannot put out himself. The world is suffering. Is there no legal way of stopping this immature and dangerous conman from causing more damage?

Friday 20 March

After a good night's sleep, you would think we were efficient and working on the roof at 9 AM. Not really. The weather was absolutely fantastic, loads of sun, blue sky, and no wind. It was about 11 degrees Celsius. It was epic spring weather! We had a slow morning and chatted a lot.

Eventually, we got out to work. WB and DD painted subsequent layers on the fascia boards. At that time, I prepared the scaffold, moving parts from the north side to the south side.

WB continued painting while DD and I set up the scaffold on the south side of the building. The east side is much higher than the west side, so we had to extend the feet considerably to bridge the height difference. Luckily, we bought really long feet for the scaffold. I like this scaffold; it makes the impossible possible.

Then I took off the old fascia boards. Here, the west side revealed considerable damage to the ends of some of the roof planks. The solution for that would be to apply a new resh plank vertically along the west side. The new blank provides plenty of wood to connect the fascia boards. Before doing any of that, we applied the oxalic acid treatment to the west side. On the north side, most of the original beams had been removed, so the oxalic acid flowed easily; here, we are keeping as many beams as possible. Oxalic acid is not flowing as easily on this side. We did our best.

After today's work, we had a walk around our property. The sun was setting, and the light was golden. I found a rock with a split in it, and in that split a tree grew. I could not take a photo of the rock and the tree without my shadow being in it. Instead of trying to sneak the camera in, I made a feature of my shadow.

This property is 16.5 Hectares. So the property is 165000 square meters. Since that is so difficult to imagine, I figured out that it is 633 double tennis courts, 393 basketball courts (NBA/FIBA), 31 American football fields, or 132 Olympic-sized swimming pools. The Eliburn Park in London is also 16.5 hectares.

	WB climbed a tree.

It was great to explore the area around the cottage.

Saturday 21 March

Today we had a day of rest, sort of. We did not climb the roof. We went to the city to another second-hand shop, EFI, which is only open on Saturdays. Here I bought a thicker shirt that I hope I have on when trying the plasma cutting machine. It was magnificent weather again.

We arrived on time for the shop's opening. It was already full. I guided DD and WB to the shop's cellar, where the tools were kept. WB was interested in finding some vintage tools, but found none. DD was looking for vintage film camera gear. I found a large pair of metal pliers for adjusting firewood. That can be handy in the cottage. DW found many items, and our basket was full.

At the cafe we had coffee and cake. They had delicious cakes in this cafe. I found a shelf in the cafe that was not on sale, but it was marvellous. It had two carved faces. Perhaps the faces were screaming? It was made of oak. I do not think we would buy it, but it was cool enough to be remembered with a photograph.

 

After EFI, we went to another smaller second-hand shop. We were not at all concerned about the closing of shops. We had gone to the city to buy more screws, etc., for the roof project, and while we were wandering around in the second-hand shop, one hardware store after another was closing. We had no idea. Instead, we went to the local museum for art and design, Vandalorum.

At Vandalorum, we visited an exhibition by the Japanese artist Masayoshi Oya. He currently lives in Sweden and has a studio in Gothenburg. It was a nice exhibition, though a little meager. Of all objects, this mug was the most spectacular in my humble opinion. It is a perfectly straight mug, which is not that inspirational on its own. The saucer is also completely flat; it does not even have a matching ridge for the cup, indicating the spot where the mug is supposed to be standing. This is minimalism leaning into munk mode. Since Masayoshi is Japanese, he perhaps adheres to the Minimarisuto minimalistic lifestyle? Of course, not forcing the cup to stand in the middle of the saucer makes the usage more flexible. This way, the cup can stand perfectly well on one side, and there is sufficient room for a delicious cake on the saucer next to the cup. Still, perhaps the minimalist people would frown on that excessive indulgence of a minimalistic saucer?

Next to the exhibition was a workshop area. I grabbed a piece of clay and made a small piece of art. Here is a film of my piece.

It is a little guy sitting on a chair. That is all. This is what I can do in 15 minutes. This was cool. Now the exhibition was feeling fulfilling.

Vandalorum is made up of three barns, and the exhibition of Masayoshi was situated in the first barn. The next barn was closed. In the last barn, we found an exhibition by local artist Anna Pajak. This did not speak to me. I understand that perhaps some abstract shapes could be seen as ovaries or a vulva. Okay. Perhaps the smell of the art evoked more emotions than the art itself. The smell was of artist's oil paint. The kinds of smells I experienced at the studio De Stoker in Amsterdam, where I painted models and portraits for ten years. I worked with real artists at that studio. I do miss painting at De Stoker, but, as far as I know, they no longer host those events.

We ended our visit to the highly ranked restaurant of Vandalorum. Here you can enjoy food of culinary excellence. Even vegetarian food is exquisite. When we were done with Vandalorum, a couple of more shops had closed. We were running out of options.

When we drove back to the cottage, we had bought the groceries we needed, but we had not restocked our storage of screws. We found the gutter brackets, so that was great. On the way home, we pondered why several hardware stores do not feature screws with a rubber ring in several lengths. One length for the top of the ridge and another length for the bottom of the ridge. Can it be that they are advising only at the bottom of the ridge? It appears there are two camps in building community. One side is doing screws in the ridge, and the other is doing screws in the bottom. It is definitely the case that more holding force is applied to the roof board when the board is sandwiched between wood and a rubber ring. When screwing the board into the ridge, there is air beneath the screw head. Air is not holding back much. I do not think we will get to the bottom of this matter with the knowledge we have. One thing is clear: you can get the shorter version in all sorts of colors in several shops. The longer version in black is only in one shop. It was closed when we discovered this dilemma.

In the evening, we skipped a proper supper, because of the great meal at the restaurant of the art and design museum.

So that was our resting day. It was over too early in my opinion.

Sunday 22 March

It was a cold night at the cottage, with the temperature a couple of degrees below freezing the grass had a white frost in the morning. We had decided to eat breakfast at 10 AM and start working at 11 AM. This worked really well! DD was a little disgruntled that we did not reach a nice rhythm in our work, but things progressed well!

At 14 PM, we had applied all the roof boards. We put the screws into the bottom of the ridges and spread the overlap over all the boards of the roof. This way, we could make the seams more robust despite putting the screws at the bottom of the ridges.

We had lunch, and after lunch we formed two teams. DD and BW started working on the east fascia boards. At the same time, I worked on the gutter and downpipes.

At 5 PM, we decided we were done with today's work. I still had more to do on the downpipe, but that is for tomorrow. To our surprise, we had one extra roof board over when we were done.

To celebrate the achievement, we had a drink on the lawn in front of the house. It was chilly but sunny. The sky was clear blue. It was magical to have the roof of the wood-store house covered with proper roof boards.

Above our heads, a V-shaped formation of crane birds came flying over. There were 42 crane birds in this formation.

Here ends this week's blog. Next week, we will start the week by mounting the fascia boards on the west side of the building. Then there will be time for leisure activities, whatever that is. The most important achievement this week was replacing the roof of the wood-store house.

I wrote 3188 words this week. That is amazing, considering I have been mighty tired of building. Welcome back next week!