With the Gull Bay’s chimneys in, I was able to finish shingling the front of the house.

The seam where the shingles meet is, well, not perfect. Also the rows get kind of crookedy near the top. Eh, I did my best. (Or maybe not my best, but the best I felt like doing. Shingling is tedious and I was tired of it!)

I considered adding one more row of shingles to the top (cut off so they would be spaced like the rest of the rows) but I was running dangerously low, and still had two dormers on the back to finish. I counted how many shingles it had taken to do the first dormer and frantically counted out what I had left. I was four shingles short.

I could have bought another bag but it seemed like a waste of money when I was so close to not needing it, plus staining shingles is messy. I ran down to my workroom and scrounged around for some more shingles that had been discarded when I ripped out my initial attempt at shingling the front gable. I found several with glue on them and a few other clean ones that were just lying around. It pays not to clean up after yourself!
So, I decided to skip another row on the front and do the dormers very carefully. One reason I have trouble shingling angles is that the shingles split easily. I managed, with nine shingles to spare. Whew!






Emily is a freelance writer, miniaturist, and adventure game enthusiast.

