Blog 7 Roof

We have to make a decision about the roof. We decided to try some architectural asphalt shingles. Since so much of our roof can be seen, it is a huge decision. We asked our contractor to buy a box of the shingles and put it on a section of roof so we could see what it looked like.
If you look on the right corner you can see the shingles. It is quite different than the cedar shakes.

This is not the look we were going for. After my sister, Lou, did some research we located a company that makes a product out of recycled materials that looks like a cedar shake. This company happened to have the product on a building in Asheville , so I went to look at it.
Notice the thick shingles on the roof.

We are investigating this product. It is 3 times over our budget but it looks so real on the roof. It has a 50 year guarantee if installed buy a certified installer. The company can certify a roofer on line if the roofer is willing to do the training.  We ended up getting samples from several companies.

Our problem is , the roof is at eye level. What ever we use for the roof, it must not look or feel fake because you can see it up close. See below how close you are to the roof. This is me at the top step getting ready to walk down the steps towards the front door.

After much discussion the fake options were finally ruled out due to high cost, shininess of it, and the ability to touch the plastic. So we tried several other asphalt shingles. See below.

Here is another one. We bought a package of it and had the roofer  put it up.

 Here it is close up.

I do not like this...UGH. The roofers were scheduled last week but we have no roof selected so nothing is happening at the house.

Our architect asked me to look at a house that is located near us to see if I liked the way the roof looked. Here is the roof.

This looks a little like cedar shakes. I found the product on line and found out that it is available at Home Depo, so we went and looked at it.

Finally we have found our roof. Now we have to order it and wait for it to come in. The good news is that the cost fell with in our budget (unlike the fake roof).

Here is what our house looks like now with 3  different roofing options that we bought and had put on the house. We, actually I, had a hard time making the decision because I really like the look of cedar but it is not practical.   

Up Next- front door decisions