So, my 112 year old house is topped by a 112 year old slate roof.  That 112 year old slate roof is beginning to show signs of it’s age, and has not been very reliable in recent years.  Hard driving rain shows it’s weaknesses, as does ice.  We have several buckets under the eaves catching most of the leaks, but now and then a new one presents itself.   Right now my roof is topped with about 4, if not 5 inches of ice along it’s edges, along with several inches of snow which is becoming crusty and more frozen by the day because of the severe temperatures in these here parts.  This of course means that more leaks become evident as water sneaks under the loose roof tiles and gets trapped there by ice.  The icicles are a good four feet long is some areas, and none have come crashing down yet.  Each day I wait for the earthquake-like crash of the roof letting go, and each day passes without it.  Of course, the icicles are quite beautiful to photograph.

The only way I could think to show you how huge some of these are was to place my finger on one.

So my dear friend (*waves to Sue*) always says, “It all starts with a throw pillow!” or in this case, a leaky roof.

Zan and I figure, well, if we have to replace the roof, why not raise it while we’re at it?  Raising the short roof over our kitchen in the back of the house would allow us to add a Master bedroom and a second bathroom.  Right now, our girls share a room and we only have one bathroom…As they get older, we can see the wisdom in having a bathroom of our own.

Of course, this leads to all sorts of issues…

First of all, the cost of replacing a slate roof is astronomical.  But I am irrationally against replacing it with asphalt…I can’t explain my emotional reaction to the topic, but putting asphalt on this house just seems sinful.  The thought of losing the anchor that was designed with the differently colored slate on one side of the house, and the diamond on the other brings me to tears.

Then there’s the issue of moving interior walls in order to access the new bedroom in the addition…this would require stealing room from the present bathroom, which would mean a new bathroom, AND a bathroom renovation at the same time.  All very exciting (and very much needed in the near future) but also very, very expensive.

When I say expensive, I mean more than we spent buying the house 12 years ago.

And I have thought about this plan every which way to Sunday, and still can’t come up with a better configuration for the extra space.

So, we ponder…

The roof HAS to be repaired, half of it completely replaced (at the very least…the main roof may need the same full rip and tear treatment as well…not sure until someone gets up there to investigate more thoroughly.)   So do we spend a small fortune repairing/replacing the slate roof, and leave it at that?  Or do we spend a large fortune and add a room, bathroom, and bathroom renovation on top of the roof replacement?  Do we cut the costs by replacing a slate roof with modern materials?  *yuck*sniff*  Do we bag the whole thing and move to Florida?  *just* kidding*

Oh, well.  That’s what we get for buying a 100 year old fixer upper.  No more Disney trips for us for awhile I’m afraid…glad we played so much last year since this will be the next few years of our lives.