Northern Bedrock Returns to Work on the Pastor’s House Roof

A five-member crew from Northern Bedrock has returned to Gammelgården from September 1st-9th to work on the Pastor’s House roof. They focused during the week on removing the shakes installed on the roof in 2004.

During the first two days, the crew set up the scaffolding and safety equipment. On the third day, the crew removed all the shakes. By the end of the day, it was clear the job would be much larger because significant gaps, holes, and dry rot ran across the entire roof.

An interesting find was rolled-up newspapers from 1953 that were inserted from the interior of the building to block the holes and gaps in the roof. The newspapers have been removed and saved, and will be unrolled. These papers will give a glimpse into the news and happenings in 1953.

The crew is also going through the nails to remove the hand-forged, square-headed ones.

By the fifth day of the hitch (work week) at Gammelgården, the crew worked on covering the roof with 1/2″ plywood and sistering the rafters that have cracks in them. On the east side, 9 of the 11 rafters need sistering.

To see photos from the first five days of the roof restoration project, visit the photo albums on Facebook: Days 1-2, Day 3, Day 4, and Day 5.

The crew will return to Gammelgården on October 27th and work until November 4th to remove the shakes from the west side of the roof and the two porches, sister the rafters on the west side of the building, cover the west side roof, and install the hand-split cedar shakes.

Gammelgården continues to raise funds to support this critical restoration work on the Pastor’s House. With your support, you can help save this building and reopen it to the public by 2029.

To make a gift to the Museum’s capital campaign, please mail a check (payable to Gammelgården Museum, with “Capital Campaign” on the note line) to: Gammelgården Museum, P.O. Box 62, Scandia, MN 55073, or give online on the Museum’s website.