Sprinklers, Blinds and Hops

Some updates:

• Sprinklers installed in the front yard. Hopefully the barren wasteland look will be a thing of the past. Still need to get the back half by the star pine.

• Replaced the blackout blinds in the dining room. Reused the bamboo blind as it fit perfectly across the two windows and only took slight modification to fit on the existing brackets.

• Fully harvested the Saaz hops. 18oz total which is pretty good for a first year plant. Cloned a start of it for a buddy at work. Also hope to clone more and get them on the perimeter fence.

• Mounted some mirrors in the 'greenhouse'. Belle has set up an office there because it has been so hot.

Bonus Material -- Details of Installing A Skylight on an old zero degree roof:

I had relatively no idea how to do this moving into the project and the instructions given by the manufacturer while helpful mainly focused on ehhh newer construction. There were some good takeaways but some gripes as well (why don't you just tell me what to cut my 2x4's to instead of giving the outside dimension?). Anyhow I first built the frame and verified the skylight fit. Then I investigated the roof, which turned out to be tongue and groove 3/4" redwood with a 3/8" particle board mat on top which the shingles were nailed to. I measured the spot to put the skylight and drilled 4 1/2" starter holes at each corner. I then went up to the roof and traced the inside diameter of the frame on the shingles. I then cut a massive hole in our roof. At this point I became very timid to step on the area between the hole and the edge of the roof, as the only support (at the time) was the grooves and the wall. I would recommend this to others as well, there is no need to risk it, so keep to the solid side. I then cut back the shingles about 3" around the entire hole and pulled it up so I could slip the underlayment and the flashing under it. The flashing kit that was built for the specific skylight while expensive was worth it as it fits extremely well and required no modification. Prior to attaching the flashing I screwed the frame to the roof from the inside of the house. Then screwed the flashing to the frame (keep this above the level of the seal). According to the manufacturer this is enough to completely seal the skylight, but with a 0 degree roof I felt I needed to do more. I took some spare torch down tar we had left over from the wet room and a blowtorch and proceeded to go to town on that. The easiest and safest way was to do it from the inside with my torso sticking out the top while standing on a ladder. Finally I cleaned up my saw cuts with a sander and added some metal we used on the egg carton. Also skylights cost more than I expected (~450 bucks on sale).