Pedley's Ponderings

The plight of owning an old home is that nothing ever seems "done." Our to-do list is always loaded, not that we have any ambition to chip away at it anyway.

Pressure to cross several items off that list ramped up in May when Kaity and I put our 105-year-old Ocheyedan home on the market. We are hoping to move to Hartley soon, but that decision has necessitated a flurry of activity at family headquarters before any boxes get packed

Big projects like new siding, soffit fascia and living room trim have been hired out. We ordered new basement and garage windows as well, and the old crank window in the kitchen was also replaced. We will have installed more than 40 new windows there once everything is finished as most were switched out in 2017.

Yours truly has been tasked with completing more mundane projects like painting and other touch-up work. As an admitted home improvement idiot and vivacious procrastinator, it truly is better that I'm not in charge of big stuff.

Still, I couldn't help over-promise one large project. Our old back garage needed new shingles, and by God, I was the man who was going to get the job done.

This building has always been somewhat of a scourge on our property. It sat on the south lot in the far corner, and the siding never matched the color of our house. You see, one of the former owners of our house bought the next-door property years ago to remove the house and rid themselves of an eyesore. They kept the garage, though, but most people who visited our home didn't even know it was ours.

This thing was already a mess when we took over the property in 2016. There was a hole in the roof and the garage door didn't even open because it hit the ceiling joists up above. It was originally built in 1900 for use as a horse barn and also featured a top story for hay storage. For lack of a better word, it was unique.

Five more years of penetrating Iowa weather hadn't done the garage any favors, but nonetheless, I climbed atop its roof one cold and wet May weekend. I had hoped to remove the old shingles, re-sheet rotten spots, and get everything covered by Sunday. Shingles were to be nailed down the weekend after, according to my imaginary itinerary.

I regretted my decision almost immediately. Upon plunging my pitchfork into the shingles, I was met with unforeseen resistance. Whoever had put the asphalt shingles on the roof decades ago did so overtop the old wood shakes, which had essentially turned into stringy compost thanks to years of rot.

Internally fuming, I gradually removed the mess from the roof. Much to my exponential disappointment, there were hardly any roofing nails left on the sheeting below. Instead, thousands of tiny nails used to secure the wood shakes were left, requiring painstaking hand removal.

If the project wasn't ridiculous enough, my work revealed more rot than previously expected. This was the "good side," too, and I began to dread what lied ahead.

Instead of re-sheeting rotten parts on Sunday, I spent the morning and afternoon precariously removing nails from the west side of the roof with a hand puller. This sucker was steep too, and I had to twist my body in rather unprecedented positions to get the job done. I called it a weekend once the mess below was cleaned up.

A smart man would have given up then and there, but I don't claim such intelligence. Determined and mad, I took a Friday off to tackle the east side with a new plan – Instead of removing the asphalt shingles and wood shakes at the same time, I would rip them off separately with the hopes of making for a smoother process.

I never got to find out if my theory worked. After removing about a third of the asphalt shingles, I reached the gaping hole that had been staring at me for six years. I started kicking bad spots, but once my leg started getting tired and the bad area outnumbered the good, I realized there was nothing left for me to do. This thing was going to cost us much more than we had originally hoped and needed to go.

The estimate for removal was $800. After returning the shingles and sheeting I had already purchased, it would be a wash. I wanted one thing off the roof before the whole thing headed to the burn hole, though.

While working on the west side, I uncovered a board with "POST OFFICE OCHEYEDAN, IOWA" scrolled across it. Figuring it had at least some historical value to someone, I popped it out and took it across the street to my neighbor, Barb Block, who has helped oversee operations at the Tracy House Museum in town for several years.

She was thrilled. Not only did this board once serve as the local Post Office's sign during Ocheyedan's early days, but she actually had a picture of it in use filed away in her archives. She said the garage had historical value, too, as it was one of the last remaining residential horse barns in town. I shrugged and told her our plans for its demise – it was too far gone by my eye.

But, one man's trash is another man's treasure. The Tracy House approached me about taking the barn and restoring it for display, to which I happily agreed. They would get a new historical addition and I would be rid of the thing for free. Everybody wins.

A group of volunteers moved the dilapidated building off our property last Saturday. It was quite the task, but they accomplished it without catastrophic incident. I was surprised the thing even stayed together.

Nonetheless, they say the bones are good and volunteers are planning to completely restore it in the coming months. I eagerly await the finished product – what a group of talented volunteers can accomplish will far exceed whatever paltry results my carpentry skills would have yielded.

I wish I would have mentioned the garage to Barb several years ago – the museum could have had it then, too. So it goes. I'm just happy the barn is getting a new life and I'm even happier I won't be responsible for doing it.

Nick Pedley is the news editor of The Hartley Sentinel-The Everly/Royal News.