I had an agent from American Metal Roofs come out and check out the Sullivan House. I’ve been interested in metal roofs for a while now. My uncle originally mentioned them to me after discussing them with my cousin, who’s an architect. They are essentially permanent insofar as they’ll never need to be replaced again in my lifetime, and they absorb far less heat. You can also get them in various styles, like vintage shake shingles to match the original style of my house, and they look damn good.

For our 24 x 36 ft carriage house, which includes a small tower at the top center of the roof and a hay bale door, he estimated in the $6,000 range for materials to do the job. The labor is prohibitively expensive for various reasons, but they offer monthly seminars for DIYers, so I’m hopeful it’s a possibility. The carriage house currently has shake shingles under two layers of asphalt roof, so it’s going to involve a dumpster and a new subroof too unfortunately.

While he was there, I asked him to take a look at the main house roof. He noted (as has my contractor) that the gravel has worn off entirely in places and is looking bad. He suggested an asphalt roof would cost in the $30,000 range and a metal roof would be more like $100,000. Furthermore, it’s definitely not a DIY project due to the highly irregular roofline. He said he had maybe four employees he’d trust to do a job this complex, and that even some of his five-year employees didn’t have enough experience for it. Whew.

So, the carriage house roof seems feasible if enough people are willing to help out. The main house – well, who the hell knows. Anything more that two months in the future is speculation and nonsense when it comes to the One in Woodbridge.