Man lift

Can you believe that Home Depot rents these to just anyone? Totally cool and extremely useful - but oh so scary!

The unit is self leveling. Just deploy the outriggers and they lift the whole thing to level. 

The man-lift

The controls are simple and can be used either from the ground or the lift box.

Testing the placement and controls

Chris, who has no fear, had to see how high it would go.

The answer? "Very"

I was much more sensible *ahem*.

Even with the lift we still had to occasionally use the big extension ladder. It was unbelievably creepy to use the lift near the ladder. I was scared to death that I would mess up and knock Chris off. 

Both of us at the top

Having such a stable platform meant that we could easily and calmly do the highest boards. 

Easy as pie

There was enough room in the basket to fit lots of tools so we didn't have to keep going up and down.

That darn nail gun is heavy!

The west end covered

Cooper thought we were being boring and brought her leash out for a walk. What a cutie! She didn't get to chew it for long. We keep a pretty close eye on her.

What? Is this my leash?

 When we moved the unit to the east end of the house Chris decided to get some aerial shots.

East to west along the ridge pole

 The view was stunning.

Looking further east

 And we looked so little down there!

That is one tall machine

After goofing around a bit, we got right back to work. We finished the west end of the house in one day and had one more day on the rental to get the east end done.

East end of the house

 This end went faster because we'd already fit the long boards in place. Just needed to trim and nail.

Done!

I have to say the rental was well worth the money. So much easier than balancing on ladders set into uneven land.

We didn't get the north and south upper floors done. We're out of wood and will need to order more. But those don't need the lift - just sticky shoes for walking on the metal roof.