Author: Debbie and Joe

This morning we got going early, so we could make 9AM mass in Terre Haute, Indiana.  It was a beautiful church and mass.   It was amazing to see the number of families that had four or more young children.  Welcome to the heartland of America.  There is something to be said about living the simple life on a farm with a large family.

After a short 2 hour drive, we arrived in Sullivan, IL.    Most of today’s drive was on local roads, passing fields and fields of corn and soybeans.   We gained an hour, since we drove into Central time at the Illinois state line.

When we arrived at the Faith Lutheran church campground, we were welcomed by some old and new Care-A-Vanner friends.   After chatting for a bit, we moved Breezy into our ‘campsite’ and hooked up water, electric and gray water lines.    The Town of Sullivan provides a great electrical hook up system that provides 50 amp service to each motor home.   The motor homes that were here before us set up a good system for water distribution.  The Sullivan Habitat affiliate has been hosting Care-A-Vanners for at least 13 years, so they have all these logistics set up before we arrive.   It only took about 30 minutes, and Breezy was ready :-).

There are seven RV’s set up at ‘Faith Resort’

        

Here’s a look at the electrical setup:

      

After getting settled in, we headed over to the ground breaking ceremony.    It was lead by the Vice President from the Sullivan Habitat Affiliate.   There was a pastor present that lead us through some very touching prayers, which ended in our response “O God, Let us rise up and build!”

Then Jennifer, the new owner, and her two daughters, Gabby and Kendall, took a shovel to move some dirt.   As you can see from the picture, the foundation is done, and waiting for us to start tomorrow.

    

After the ceremony, we were treated to an amazing fried chicken buffet dinner at a local church.   In addition to the chicken, they had macaroni and cheese, potato salad, potatoes Au gratin, pulled pork, coleslaw, fruit salad and tons of dessert.   I’ve heard that they sent all the left overs back with us to Faith resort, so we will have a ton of food for dinner tomorrow night in the church community room.

After dinner, we all gathered under the gazebo to talk about our plans for tomorrow.

It’s been a busy day.   Looking forward to getting started tomorrow!

 

 

We woke up to a 36 degree morning!   The good news is the heat works really well in Breezy (that’s what we call our Tiffin Breeze Motorhome).   But, it was time to break out the winter gear … especially for us Floridians 🙂 .

After a wonderful devotion from a local pastor, we started on the final punch list for the house.   We had to be done before the key ceremony at 5:00pm.

I went right to work on finishing up the master bath shower.  Yesterday, I worked about 30 minutes trying to get a really stubborn sticker off of the tub.   It had a plastic coating, so it was really tough to get off.   This morning, I came armed with ‘goo be gone’ which worked like a champ.  I then had the task of cleaning the (really dirty) shower and toilet.    Joe was on paint touch up duty.

After that, I was off to doing windows.  The windows were amazing … they folded in to allow for easy cleaning on both sides.    I definitely need to get these for our condo in Florida!

I spent the rest of the time cleaning floors.  As you can imagine, they were a mess … and took about 3 boxes of Swiffer wipes.   Joe was on last minute clean up duty, and did an amazing job with the kitchen sink.

We were treated by the local pastor to a meal at a local restaurant, The Red Apple.   We had sent in our orders ahead of time, and the meals were ready for us when we arrived.   Another great example of community support.    After lunch, we got back to last minute touch ups at the house.   We were done at 1:43 … way ahead of schedule.   The house looks amazing.   It’s a great layout, with three bedrooms, two baths, a nice size living room, kitchen, dining room and lots of closets.

We returned to the house at 5PM for the key ceremony.   It was very well attended, with about 50 people there.    As you can imagine, the new homeowner and her son were very emotional.

After a very exciting day, the Habitat affiliate treats the Care A Vanners and their board of directors to a family style dinner at an Amish house.   We had more food than we could eat … fried chicken, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, macaroni, green beans, salad, bread, amazing pies and ice cream.   The food just kept coming!

Well, another amazing build at Sullivan.    We will definitely be back some time to help them build another home.  The people here are amazing!

We worked on putting a second coat of paint on all of the door trim.  Our goal was to have all of the trim painted on all 15 doors by early afternoon.

We also painted all of the floor trim.

Joe used a foam roller to put a light coat of paint on the doors.   The doors were pre-painted by a volunteer a few weeks ago.  Unfortunately, they were painted in a garage, and never dried correctly.    Just about every door needed to be sanded.  The paint was still wet … and caked up in the sander.   Many of the doors were also painted shut.   Oh well, I hear next year the doors will be painted AFTER they are installed 🙂 .

After the painting was completed for the day, we started the clean up.  We removed all the tape and cardboard from the floors.   Most of the tools were put away.    I cleaned up alot of the paint drips on the floor.   The house is looking good!    We do have a few things to finish up tomorrow, but we are on schedule for being ready.

After work, we had a team dinner at Mason Point, the retirement community in Sullivan.  The new owner and her son joined us for dinner.  They are getting very excited about the key ceremony tomorrow!

We started our day sanding door trim.  There are 10 doors in the house, so it took us a good part of the day.   We finished up around 2PM.

After sanding, we started painting door trim.   We were surprised how long each door took to paint.  There are many corners and surfaces to be painted.  The door trims need 2 coats of paint.  By the end of the day, we finished all but two of the doors.   The goal tomorrow will be to finish all door trim, and finish most of the house touch up.

For lunch, we had another great lunch sponsored at a local church.   It was the second time we had an unusual salad.   When asked what the salad was called, we were told it is a seven layer salad.   They shared the recipe.

After a good day of work, we joined four other Care a Vanners at a local restaurant.  We enjoyed the prime rib special.   We are certainly eating very well.  Yes, we are working all day, but I still think we are gaining weight 🙂 .

 

I forgot to add some pictures from our dinner last night at the local VFW.   The VFW serves lunch and dinner 7 days a week, and is the favorite place for one of the Care a Vanners on our team.   I did try some new things …. fried pork rinds and fried pickles!

Well, today we got alot of practice on floor molding.   We picked up the pace, and got quite a bit done.   We got really good coping, which is used for inside corners.   One piece is straight to the wall.  The matching corner piece needs to be cut with a coping saw to match the curved detail of the top of the molding.  Over half of the team was helping on the floor molding, and we are just about done.   We have a few closets to finish up tomorrow, and then we will be moving to touch up painting.

After work, we had the traditional ice cream social.   Many of the Care A Vanners return to the Sullivan build year after year, so there are some traditions that form over the years.   Toni and Skip (Team Leads), brought ice cream, hot peaches and blueberries.  We brought some strawberries and peanut M&M’s.   Others brought assorted ice cream toppings, including traditional Amoratto.   As you can imagine, it was delicious!

We learned how to cut floor molding for both interior and exterior corners.   Inside corners need to be coped, which requires the use of a fine saw and a file to get it to fit precisely.   We started in the master bath, which has a ton of small pieces and cuts.    It got a bit easier as we went on, but it was still very slow going.

  

   

After a delicious lunch at a local church, we moved into the second bathroom.   With 45 degree walls, some of the cuts were a challenge.   It was still slow going, but I think we are getting the hang of it.   We will be at it again tomorrow!

 

 

We decided to work on Saturday morning to finish up the doors.   We had to finish up the small closet door, and install the bedroom door.   Each door seemed to have it’s own challenges, but we overcame them.   All the doors were installed before we left on Saturday!

Saturday night, we were treated to homemade shrimp gumbo from couple from Louisiana.   It nice to have this special meal with the team on our anniversary.   Joe and I brought a delicious chocolate cake for dessert.

On Sunday after mass and lunch, we decided to visit one of the local ‘highlights’ …. a 2 story outhouse.    In 1872, Samuel Gammill built the outhouse at the rear of his general store. There were apartments upstairs, and the second floor of the building connected to the second floor of the outhouse across a short ramp, giving 19th century tenants a private bathroom. The store was torn down in 1984, but the outhouse was carefully spared.

On the way back, we had a good look at the machine that cuts down the corn stalk and pulls out the cob automatically.   Very cool!

 

 

 

 

 

After our morning devotion and prayer from a local pastor, we hold hands in a circle and say ‘Habitat is not a hand out (with hands in front), but a hand up (as we raise our hands)’.   It is such a great way to start every work day!

It was a bit rainy last night, so the ground was fairly muddy.   We put some boards down in the mud to try to keep the floor fairly clean.  We did tape cardboard boxes on the floor which helps a bit.

We set off solo on our first door in the master bedroom.   The hinge side wall was perfectly level, so we were able to set it in the doorway and nail in.   We then put in shims on the other side with the goal of keeping the ‘reveal’ even.  The ‘reveal’ is the space between the door and the frame.  After putting the shims in multiple places, we trimmed the shims with the nifty saw.   We finished that door around 10:30, so it took us about 2 hours.  Not bad for the first door install.

We then worked on installing the door in the second bedroom.  This door was in bad shape.  The top corner of the door near the hinges was pulling apart and the door was painted shut.   We finally got it placed in the door frame and put on the shims with an even ‘reveal’.   So close … until we realized that the top part of the frame was not level.   In doing some analysis, we realized that the hinge frame sat under the laminate flooring, so the side to side heights were different.    After lunch, we learned how to cut out the nails, trim the bottom of the door and remount.   Whew, we finally got it done, but it was a challenge.  The good news is that we are learning what works best with these type of doors.   We hear from everyone on the job site that these doors are not up to the usual standards for a door.  The flimsy particle board make it very difficult to work with.

While we were working on these doors, the rest of the team was busy working on wiring outlets and lights, installing bathroom vanities, range hood, blowing insulation in the attic and trimming doors.   The contractor came today to install the HVAC system, so we now have heat and air conditioning.  There are alot of parallel activities going on at once making it tough to move around.

When we got back to the campground, there was a package waiting.   Joe ordered ballloons to celebrate our 34th wedding anniversary.  What a nice surprise!

Joe and I decided to go back to the job site tomorrow morning (Saturday) to see if we can get another couple of doors installed.   Hoping that our experience will make these go a bit faster 🙂 .

Today was much cooler than it has been with temperatures in the mid 60’s.  Light jackets were needed for us ‘Floridians’ to start the day.  It was breezy, making it a very nice change for working.

After our morning devotion from a local pastor, we got to work finishing the flooring in the master bedroom suite.   We only had a small space to finish in the closet and bath, but it required multiple tricky cuts.  Joe worked on creating a template for the commode which was a tricky cut out.   We worked as a team, and got the circular cuts needed.   We were able to finish up the flooring in the master suite about 10:30am.   It was about the same time that the other flooring team finished the other 2 bedrooms and bath … so all the flooring in the entire house was in by mid-morning!  The floor looks great and will be super easy to keep clean since it’s all vinyl.

Our next job is to install interior doors.   This house has 15 doors, more doors than any other Habitat house they have built in this community.   The building lead on the team is not very happy with the quality of the doors, since the door frames are made out of press board.   Also, the doors were painted by some Habitat volunteers and were not dried correctly … so the doors are stuck to the frames.   This makes it tough to get the doors leveled correctly.     We spent the afternoon watching and helping Bob install two doors, so we could get the hang of it.   We did use this very cool jitterbug tool that easily cuts through the shims on the door.    Debbie got her first taste of hydraulic tools with an automatic nailer.  We’ve now graduated from the training stage, and will tackle the doors tomorrow.

While we were working on floors and doors, some of the team were installing kitchen and bathroom cabinets.   Others were installing electrical receptacles around the house.

After the workday was over, we came back to the motorhome to shower, change and rest a bit before dinner.   I decided to take a picture from our motorhome window.   In this part of the country, there seems to be miles and miles of corn fields.   Many of them at this point in the year are brown.   I’ve been told that they harvest these for feed.

We were then treated to an amazing meal at AMBUCS.  The mission of AMBUCS is creating mobility and independence for people with disabilities.    This local affiliate builds wheel chair ramps for those in need, which is amazing.   We had the biggest country style pork chops I have ever seen.   Their chef (volunteer) smoked the chops for 4 hours before lathering them up with barbecue sauce on their grill.   Top that with bacon and cheese mashed potatoes, coleslaw, pork and beans and pumpkin pie.   I had so much food, I couldn’t even have dessert.

We look forward to a fun day of door installations tomorrow 🙂 .