On the 5th and 6th of June the roof started to get filled in. With the main ridge pieces both in place, rafters and ceiling joists can be added quite quickly now, at least until I start to get to the middle of the L-shape where there are 'valley rafters' and 'jack rafters' which are the nightmares I'm least looking forward to!

One problem I've had already was with adding the second ridge piece. You can see from the pictures that I rested it on the top rung of the ladders and then lifted it and fixed it into place. What you might also be able to work out (and I didn't!) is that when it's in place the ladders ain't going nowhere! They couldn't move side to side because they were surrounding the timber, and closing them up to get them down didn't work either because that jammed them below the ridge as well. I almost thought I'd have to unscrew the ridge and move the ladders sideways, but in the end my glamorous assistant Sarah had the idea that I could remove the big stabiliser bar from the bottom of the ladder, and that JUST made enough room so that the ladders could be tipped out of the jam they were in.

I'll have to be very careful from now on, not least because as I add the ceiling joists it will stop me getting up the ladders while they are set up as step-ladders. If moving the ladders was the least of my worries I'd be happy enough, but don't even think of reminding me that there will come a day when the OSB boards will have to be fixed on top of the roof... 13 feet up, on a slope!

This is where I prove that all the planning in the world counts for nothing if you don't have experience of doing a job like this. These are the bird's mouth joints, which keep the rafters on the walls and help to stop the walls from being forced out. As you can see there appears to be a bit of a design fault, with a gap which shouldn't be there! But fear not, if there's a gap in all of them I can simply put a strip of wood in the gap and all will be well. The alternative was to change the template used to create the rafters, but I wasn't quite sure how or why this effect was happening, and so long as I know it ALWAYS happens in the same way, I can fix it. It'll work, just don't employ me as a builder! On reflection I realised that the space I'd left at the top of the OSB boards could now be completed, with the OSB filling the space behind the bird's mouth joints. And then I can claim that this was all done on purpose. Just don't tell anyone!

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