What a difference a roof makes. In Godzilla’s case that wasn’t just a case of putting on new tiles. The whole thing: wood beams, toxic insulation, and rotting cornice had to be replaced. We also took the opportunity to shore up the structure with iron reinforcement to keep the top of the house from falling apart. That felt rather important.

Usually I find replacing a roof to be the most dissatisfying of home reno expenditures, because usually it looks pretty much the same after, just a little fresher, while your bank account looks a whole lot worse. But this one made us all positively giddy, the difference was so great. The feeling that the house was now stable and dry, the effectiveness of the new insulation, the beauty of the materials – even the gutters are things of beauty with their slate overhang and copper piping.

I look at the before and after pictures and find the transformation even more unbelievable than those ads that show people who’ve experienced 70-lb weight loss.

A bonus: the old Y-junction that used to hold up Godzilla’s roof, married to a piece of discarded Rebar and a slice of gutter that looked just like an alms cup, has become the garden’s first sculpture: witness the Supplicant Angel. Unfortunately the cup has a hole in the bottom, so money flows right through…Godzilla’s perfect companion!