The Roof.

The roofing company finally got started in October. The whole crew showed up for demo and by the time we got home from work that Monday, we had almost no roof.

The carpenters got to work and we quickly realized that they were just a touch out of their league.
We were surprised, to say the least, when--two days into the project--the roofers started asking for payment. This was the beginning of several surprises and a few disappointments the roofing company ended up springing on us. These included but were not limited to : a wage twice what we agreed on, at least one horrific, storming night of water damage, several days of negotiations, and a roof that cost 4 times more and took 4 times longer than we had been quoted.
It ended up taking more than three weeks to get our new roof.

Deder took a few days off through the whole ordeal to keep an eye on the work being done and ended up making all 17 knee braces (braces that hold the 2' eaves up) and spent a few days putting some of them up after the roof was done. They are almost all up except those that will require a cherry picker or scaffoding (Deder has learned this lesson having sacrificed his circular saw to Newton's god).

Now that its over, we really love our new roof. The huge gingerbread-chalet facia is gone, the eaves are actually attached to the house now (they weren't before!?), we have new sheathing, new felt, new shingles, and new drip metal and flashing. The new roof looks great and works great and it feels like, even though it was a trial, we've really made the first BIG step to making this house shine again.