The gable roof end over our dining and kitchen area forms a triangular shape that we have named The Triangle of Doom. Mostly because it’s a pain in the ass to get up there and do anything, but also because it overlooks half the house and if anything is wrong with it, you can see it all the time.

Please observe the exposed plywood, framing and insulation up there. We’ve stared at that for over a year, since the day they knocked it out. Here’s a picture of that:

That was the view from my office, where I work, on September 9, 2020.

Really bringing the outdoors in, here. So, yeah, after staring at all the exposed framing and insulation for a year, we knew the time was coming that I had to get up there and do something about it. Drywallers wanted to just sheetrock over it but the nightmare of having drywall dust in every orifice of the house for six months was too much. We elected tongue and groove, pre-painted, so I wouldn’t have to go up there and paint it after install.

Sincerely, getting the Big Ladder inside was the worst of it. It’s stored outside under a tree (please note: 82% of our property is under a tree) so it’s covered in pitch and home to 812 spiders and weighs like 135 pounds so it’s a bitch to move around inside. But once it’s set, it’s nice and heavy and stable and can get me up there with planks and a mallet and a nail gun and sometimes a level though I quickly realized that if the boards were not level there was little I could do about it.

When it was finally done, we just about screamed. No more staring at crooked framing and dirty insulation. It was finished. Finished at last!

Sometimes when you live with something ugly long enough, you kind of stop seeing it because you stop looking at it. Our eyes just naturally averted their gaze towards that triangle. Now, it’s like we accidentally glace upwards and are pleasantly surprised.

The boards fit in better than expected, the trim goes well with it, we love the color, and I’m never going up there on that fricking ladder again.