What's a long weekend for?

Well, it's not usually for working outdoors for twelve to fifteen hours a day... most years we try to relax on the August long weekend. But this year,

we went from this...

to this...

in less than 72 hours!

After long and careful consideration, my most amazing hubby decided that it was time to turn our hobby shack into a greenhouse. He researched materials, got neighbour Jim and his truck to help transport the Lexan polycarbonate sheeting, spent several hours at different hardware stores on Thursday and Friday, and on Saturday, he was ready to go. 

We went from a closed in room...

to a wide windowed roof...

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a daylight shot through the new window materials... but you get the idea. Here are some pictures of the process (mostly for Lee's dad to see, but if you're interested, scroll down.)

Day 1: Uncle Don lends a hand with removing the old shingles...

on just the greenhouse section of the building.

First cut through the roof... thirsty work!

I was amazed at what these two did in the three hours Uncle Don was with us.

I was just cleaning up around the edges, mostly, pulling nails out of boards, 

tossing dead shingles onto the rubbish heap, and moving lumber around.

After my uncle left we laid the tar paper bed for the polycarbonate.

Oops, can't install it yet. Needs to be taped with aluminum foil first

(a lengthy process).

Getting dark, and ugh, those mosquitoes!

Tarped it down for the night before calling it quits on Day 1.

Day 2: I started removing shingles and Lee caulked the new windows.

Of course, he's a much better (and faster) shingle remover than I am!

We spent a good part of the day building up the roof so it would be level 

with the polycarbonate sheets before shingling.

Then we laid very sticky ice dam.

Lee put steel valley liners on top, and we were ready to start shingling,

but first we wanted a good night's rest.

We were very grateful to our girls for setting up a wiener roast for supper.

A lovely pink sunset closed Day 2.

Day 3: shingling valleys -- not for the faint of heart.

My arms are aching tonight from cutting shingles all day.

We did pretty well for beginning roofers.

Lee figures we tackled the toughest challenge first.

I figure he's right.

Storm clouds threatened, so our neighbour Jim helped out.

Just a little refreshing rainstorm, didn't last 5 minutes as the guys tried 

to nail the old metal cover back over the ridge pole.

Lee trimmed off the edges...

and we both cleaned up.

I can't believe how far we got in just three days. We'll shingle the back side after a good break, and we can finish the inside at our leisure.

Thanks to Jim and Uncle Don for their helping hands, but thanks most of all to my amazing Lee! It was a weekend of the kind of work that makes a person feel tired in a good way.

What did you do with your long weekend??