the cottage shed guest house exterior (1)

What a Difference a Weekend Makes: Exterior Improvements to The Cottage Shed Guest House

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This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #CollectiveBias #RoofedItMyself. The only products I choose to endorse are ones that I’d normally buy on my own and would refer to a friend.

The weekend before last, we took advantage of a beautiful spring day and got to work on some exterior projects for The Cottage Guest Shed. The number one priority was repairing the guest house roof. All the work we’ve done so far would certainly go to waste with a leaky roof. The roof was rotted where the vents were installed. We didn’t budget for replacing the roof so we were so excited and thankful when GAF Roofing Manufacturer offered to sponsor the new roof for the guest cottage. Perfect timing!

When we had the main house roof replaced, we used GAF Timberline® shingles so I already knew how good their product looks on our house and how durable the shingles are. The roof on our house has already been through a couple rough summer and winter storms. I also knew that they really stand behind their product. Their warranty is pretty awesome. If you install any of GAF’s lifetime shingles and use at least three of their qualifying accessories, not only do you get non-prorated coverage for the first 10 years but you also get a limited lifetime warranty for the shingles and the GAF accessories. I can see why Timberline® is the best selling shingle in North America. When you make a huge investment on your house, like your roof, you certainly don’t want to skimp on quality.

Although a project like a roofing a house can seem intimidating, a smaller project like our garden shed that we’re converting to a guest cottage is easily doable for the average homeowner. If ever in doubt, you can check out GAF Roofing’s installation tutorials on their Youtube channel.

Before we get started with our own tutorial, I’d like to show you a fun time-lapse video we did over the weekend while we gave the exterior of our cute little guest cottage some much-needed improvements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFq07qG7Csc

A big improvement over the period of a couple days, right? Although my husband already had a roofing nail gun from some prior projects, you can do this with just a hammer and roofing nails. You’ll also need some gloves, safety glasses, a box cutter, and a tape measure. If you’re installing drip edge flashing, then you’ll need tin snips.

After we got our measurements, we headed to Lowes to get our supplies.

We chose the Timberline® Natural Shadow® architectural shingle in Pewter Gray since that’s what we have on our main house.

We also got the following products:

  • FeltBuster® High Traction Synthetic Roofing Felt
  • Pro-Start™ Eave/Rake Starter Strip Shingles
  • TimberTex® Premium Ridge Cap Shingles
  • 1-¼” and 1-3/4″ galvanized steel roofing nails
  • 1-¼” round plastic cap roofing nails
  • Aluminum Drip Edge Flashing

First, Jason took the old layer of shingles off the roof. A roofing spade might be needed if you have a bigger project to get the old shingles off, but it’s optional.

The t-shirt do-rag is also optional, by the way. 😉

Then, he patched the areas of the roof where the OSB had rotted.

He nailed down the FeltBuster® underlayment. The Feltbuster® is more durable than asphalt felts, has better traction for walkability, and is really easy to work with.

Once the underlayment was on, he nailed down the drip edge along the perimeter of the building. This prevents shingles at the end of a roof from cracking and, more importantly, water intrusion.

My middle son, Parker, got to try out the nail gun for the first time. He says he’s sticking to computer programming.

Next, Jason got started on nailing down the Pro-Start™ starter strip and then the shingles.

The final step was nailing down the TimberTex® hip and ridge cap shingles. By the end of the day, we had a beautiful new roof just in time for the 3″ of rain we got that night!

The next day, we added some shutters and a window box to make the exterior improvements pretty much complete. We still need to replace the steps and add some landscape mulch. *Update: Instead of steps, we built a small porch. You can see it at the end of the reveal of the cottage guest shed.

It’s been a few days and I’m still amazed at the transformation!

Even more so at the change over the past 3 weeks since we started the One Room Challenge.

And here’s an updated picture a couple months later after flowers were in full bloom!

After seeing Jason put the guest house roof on, I feel pretty confident I could do it myself, too.

Have you ever done a roofing project or are you considering doing one soon? I’d love to hear what projects you have in mind!

You can find & follow GAF Roofing here:

GAF HubFacebook , and GAF Website

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of GAF Roofing.

I’ll be back tomorrow with our 5th week progress on the Cottage Guest shed.

Want to see the finished guest shed on the inside? Of course you do! Click this link or the picture below for the reveal.

Catch up on all the Modern Farmhouse Cottage Guest Shed Projects here:

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6 Comments

    1. Thank you, Jessica! The cottage got a new porch and set of steps this weekend. We’re so excited for the reveal coming up soon.

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