Attila the Roofer

We had a meeting with Steve B, Marta, and the roofer at our house this afternoon to look at samples of different roofing materials. It was a beautiful spring day, and with the cherry blossoms at their peak, a huge influx of Spring Break tourists, and a number of open houses in the neighborhood, it took us longer than expected to get there, since we were coming from a birthday brunch at a friend's house in northwest DC. Everyone was waiting outside when we arrived -- since we were the only ones with a key. Here is Steve B (in the hat) talking to Attila from ATI Roofing.
Attila brought a couple guys with him and had them climb up on the roof with the samples so we could get a sense of what they'd look like installed. Here they are doing their best Vanna White impersonations.
These are the three materials we were looking at. The one on the left is an Ecostar product made from recycled rubber and plastic. The one in the middle is a metal tile panel from Met-Tile. And the one on the right is a plastic composite tile from Vande Hey Raleigh.
Attila tried to steer us away from the metal roofing -- he said it was very noisy and could get dented if we had a bad hailstorm. In fact, I got the distinct impression that if we went with that material, we'd have to find another roofer to install it. He recommended the plastic composite tile, and told us he'd just installed it on a house in Potomac, MD. Steve suggested we drive out there to take a look, so we asked Attila for the address. He didn't have it, but gave us some vague directions and assured us it was easy to find.

After Steve and Attila left, we walked through the house with Marta and her husband and discussed a few details that we'll need to think about -- particularly on the stairs. I had no idea stairs were so complicated! We've settled on oak treads to match the floors, but we still need to decide on the risers, the posts, the handrails, the trim, the lighting, and so on... and that's just for the stairs!
After Marta and her husband left, we decided to brave the traffic and go in search of the tile-roofed house that Attila was telling us about, since we probably wouldn't have another opportunity to venture out in the daytime before we needed to make a decision on the roof. We were a little skeptical of the sketchy directions, but it turned out they were all we needed to find the house. In fact, it was hard to miss. I can not reprint here the majority of what we blurted out upon first setting eyes on this house, but suffice it to say it was colorful variations on the theme of "Oh my goodness gracious, will you look at that!" There was also much hysterical laughter -- not at the house itself, but at the absurdity of a) our unfounded concerns about being able to find it, and b) comparing it to our own house, which I'd guess is about one-tenth the size of this one, at most.
Josh is trying to decide if the front gate is maybe a teeny bit on the ostentatious side...
Here's the view through the front gate. Note the elaborate lamp-posts -- there were at least half of dozen of them. And that pile of leftover tile in front could probably cover half our roof. We initially guessed that the large wing to the left housed an indoor pool.
But when we walked around to view it from another perspective, it turned out to be a 4-car garage.
The house also extended quite a ways to the back, but since there was a crew back there working on the house (on a Sunday afternoon!), I didn't want to raise any suspicions by taking photos.

Josh commented that it's too bad we didn't see this house last weekend. It would have been a much better April Fools joke to claim these photos were of our own house!