Well, I finally got in touch with the insurance company w/r/t the roof situation. "Act of God", indeed, so I figured we were just going to have to pay a contractor to come and fix it. That is, until "Paul, April":http://apadventures.net/ and "April's dad":http://www.flickr.com/photos/apadventures/19001278/ came by to visit and check the place out on Friday. You have to understand that "April's dad":http://www.flickr.com/photos/apadventures/20169253/ built a huge house in upstate NY. By himself. I mean milling his own boards; everything! He took a look at the roof damage and said "Matt... you can fix that yourself, no problem!" So we took a run to Home Despot. He gave me a whole shopping list of things I would need to do the job; roll roofing, metal flashing, asphalt emulsion and a bunch of other things. Yesterday I "picked up most everything":http://www.flickr.com/photos/feralboy/20242708/ (at a total cost of $113.14) except a 7-foot stepladder and that flashing (no room in the car). Total is probably going to be about $200, which is way WAY less than the probably $2k-ish figure that the contractor hinted at when he was here doing an inspection for the insurance company.

I even have a little "hand-drawn recipe":http://www.flickr.com/photos/feralboy/20243846/ of how to layer all the various components in the right order. It's like an exploded drawing of a layer cake or something. I should be able to pick up the rest of the junk I need today, and maybe even get started on it tonight. Monsoon season is coming, so time to get cracking.

While there I also checked out prices for laminate flooring. The floor stuff itself isn't that expensive; maybe $1.75/sq ft, but the guy there told me that once you include all the molding pieces, foam underlay, etc. it probably winds up being $4/sq ft. April's dad thinks that's obscene, since he can do actual wood flooring in upstate NY for about that much. He suggested tile instead, which should cost maybe 25% less. I'll have to discuss with Kim, but instead of laminate everywhere it might work out better to do tile in some places, laminate in others, and some special concrete process that winds up looking like saltillo tile in the "game room" i.e. the garage i.e. my room.

In any case, time to get cracking on all this house stuff! I want to get this place fixed up and sold, asap!