Building my tiny house: Sheathing the roof and adding house wrap

I used the same OSB sheathing with the radiant barrier that I used for the siding on the roof. While on the siding, they recommend you install it shiny side facing out, on the roof they recommend installing it shiny face down.

I had a lot of fun with this project because gravity was working with us versus against us. Using the framing nail gun was less scary, and I did a lot on the lower roofing. Climbing up and down the scaffolding reminds me of being a kid at recess playing on the jungle gym. Except now I’m an adult, and the fear of falling is REAL. When I was a kid, I was fearless. What happened?!

I was grateful for Phil and Doug during this project because they came up with some pretty innovative ideas for getting the huge pieces of OSB up to the roof. For the lower roof, Phil was able to hoist it up, Doug could grab hold of it, and Phil would climb the scaffolding to help get the board onto the roof. We screwed little pieces of wood around the edges to keep the OSB from sliding off the roof.

On the higher roof part, Doug recommended we tie a rope around the sheathing and then he would hoist it up. I was very skeptical of this, but it actually worked! You’ll definitely have to check out the YouTube video, linked at the end of this article, and check it out!

Surprisingly, we were able to get all the roof sheathing done in one day. We even got to start adding the roof underlayment. This black paper is used as a barrier between the sheathing and the roofing material. In my case, I’m going to use metal roofing. I ended up running out of the roofing paper, but we were able to find some extra paper in Doug’s barn (a la Mary Poppins’ bag).

Another day, another project. We were ready to add the Tyvek house wrap over the OSB sheathing on the walls. The house wrap was one of the easiest things we’ve had to do so far. We used the same nails and with red caps that we used with the roof underlayment. I was thankful for this step because it also meant my house no longer looked like a Tesla Cybertruck! Phew.

Check out the action below!