My mother is having her roof redone. 

This is the same house that my Grandmother purchased from the builder developer / mayor of San Leandro Earl Derry.  It was Earl Derry's very own home until 1946 when Grandma purchased it.

My father grew up in this house.  I grew up in this house.

I did the same thing to my house a few years ago.  You can see it in the picture above.  Mom's house is the one with the old roof being peeled away.  My house is the brown house with the brown singles two houses to the right.

In my restoration of the house I made a mistake on the roof color.   When looking up from within the attic, I would assume that the orignal roofing layer was cedar or redwood shingles.  When the layers of my old roof came off I noticed I had it all completely wrong.  The roof color was a hunter green painted shingle.

So It got me to wondering were the other homes in Derry, Weaver & Derry's Cherry City Tract in San Leandro also hiding painted colored shingles.

Back to my mom's house pictured above, I remember when I was a kid, seeing the red asphalt shingles that my grandmother must have had installed.   My parents added the oversized brown/tan shingles in the 1970s.

Well with modern codes, and this being the fourth roof, the old existing three layers had to come off, there they were.....RED painted shingles.   It would make perfect sense to have that red roof.  The red brick walkway and front entry porch.  The red bricks around the large front window.  Even red bricks on the banding of the driveway as seen in the picture below.  I remember there being red fabric awnings on the side breakfast nook windows too,  A red roof makes perfect sense.

The picture above shows the history of the roof.   From the right to the left,  The original wood shingles painted red.  In the middle are the "coral red" shingles that my grandmother must have put on in the 1950s.  To the far left are the oversized brown tan shingles that my parents added in the 1970s.

So my question is, have any of you ever come across anything like this before?  Is painted shingles really a rare thing?

The new roof,   A 40 year landmark architectural series "resawn shake" brown/tan mix asphalt.