Author: Debbie and Joe

We woke up to another cool morning … after an amazing night of sleep ( I guess that’s what a day of hard work will get you…lol ).   Our morning routine is getting a little easier, and we were off to the job site at 7:30am.  

After an inspiring devotional from a local pastor, we talked about our goals for the day.   As we said often at our last build – ‘same as yesterday, but a bit different’.   The interior wall team returned to the campsite pavilion to finish up the assembly of the interior walls.   Our floor team got right back to work installing the sub-floor.   

Joe and I got right to work putting glue on the floor beams, but ran out of glue after about the first hour.    Fortunately there is a local hardware store close by, so we were quickly back in business.  The really good news was that this glue was soooo much easier to dispense, so Joe was able to do most of the remaining gluing by himself.

We continued to have challenges with leveling out the floor beams.   It was crazy how much variation there was along different points of the floor joists.    I jumped in to helping with the leveling, and figuring out which beams needed to be higher, and which needed to be lowered.  Joe helped with using a battery operated planer to lower some beams, while I helped with installing nailers to the beam to raise them.

After the initial placement of the OSB sheet, it needed to be aligned with the adjacent sheets.    The sledgehammer seems to get it done :-).

When we got to the end of the row, Joe used a circular saw to cut it to size.

As we got to the last couple of sheets, I was able to jump in and help with some of the nailing.

Yeah!   We were able to complete the floor decking before lunch!  We now have a dance floor :-).

It’s not just work … we have a good time working together.  Here’s a picture of some of the ladies on the job.

… and relaxing after work at happy hour under the gazebo.  

Another amazing day!  God is Good!

We woke to a beautiful crisp, cool morning here in Sullivan.   It’s always a challenge to get into a new routine that gets us ready to go at 7:30AM.  The good news is that it is Central Time, so it feels like a more reasonable 8:30AM to us :-).    When we arrived at the build, it was about 58 degrees with blue sky and a nice breeze, but it warmed up to the mid-80s by the middle of the day.  

Our day started with a local pastor joining us to lead us through a morning devotional.   As we do everyday on the build, everyone then joins hands and says “Habitat is not a hand out, but a hand up”.   It’s such a wonderful way to start the day.  Gene then broke us up into two teams:   The Wall Assembly crew and the Floor crew (which Joe and  I were on) .  

The Wall Assembly team went back to the campsite church to build the walls under the back pavilion.   It’s a great way to be able to spread out, and enjoy some shade during the day.   They made some great progress, and will hopefully finish up the walls tomorrow.

Our wall crew was off to a great start.   Joe and I had the job of applying floor glue onto the joists before the plywood installation.   The first few tubes of glue were extremely hard to apply – we think they were old tubes.  When we opened a new case of glue, it was still a challenge to apply, but it was much easier than the first tubes.   By 10AM, we had the two rows of plywood installed, and completely nailed down across each floor  joist … we had a great system going.

Well, I guess maybe it was going too smoothly … lol.   At the end of the second row, we realized that some of the floor joists were not level.   The 16 foot floor joists were very warped, causing a significant differences in height.   A small group of experts evaluated the situation and decided to cut out one of the floor joists and replace it.   That, along with using a plane to shave off some height along with installing some shims to add some height seemed to level it off enough for us to get a third row of plywood installed.   We were able to get about half of the subfloor installed, and hope to be able to finish it up tomorrow.

It’s been a great first day.  We had a beautiful day, worked with some amazing people, figured out how to work around some tough problems, and made some progress.   God is Good!

 

 

After about 4 hours of packing and loading Roadie (the nickname of our 32′ Tiffin Open Road motorhome), we left Celebration Friday afternoon to start our journey to Sullivan, IL.   It is wonderful to experience the beauties of this country through our wide screen glass window, also known as a windshield :-).  

Here is a view of a beautiful river along a rest stop in Tennessee,

along with some beautiful views of farmland in Illinois.

After about 17 hours of driving, we arrived at our Habitat campground behind the Faith Lutheran Church in Sullivan.   We were the last ones to arrive, and received a warm welcome from our team.   It was great to see our friends from previous builds, and enjoyed meeting some new friends from around the country.

We wanted to get Roadie set up before the groundbreaking ceremony.  There were convenient hook-ups for both water and electricity.   We are blessed to be able to run our shower water hose into the open fields …. yes, this means that we can take unlimited showers after a long workday!.     It did not take long to get Roadie ready for ‘Roughing it Smoothly’ (that’s the Tiffin marketing slogan…lol).

We then headed over to the groundbreaking ceremony at the build site.   We were amazed to see the progress that had already been made on getting the house started.   The floor joists and rim sills are already installed, which will certainly give us a head start :-).

The ceremony was well attended, and we were able to meet the new homeowner Rebecca Comstock, Kylee, Clark and Owen.  It is always heartwarming to see their excitement about getting a new home in just a few weeks.

After the ceremony, we were  invited to a wonderful meal at a local church.   There certainly is a reason that this is known as the ’10 pound build’, but we certainly enjoy the Sullivan hospitality … and good cooks :-).

We better hit the sack early tonight.   Us retired people are not used to getting up early, but we thank God for the opportunity to help others in an amazing way.

 

 

 

Well, today is the last day of the build.  It’s been quite a journey during these past six weeks.   We arrived at the build site to a well cleaned home.   The group of volunteers that cleaned yesterday evening did a great job!   It gave our team a day to really put the finishing touches on the home.   Bob did not want to disappoint us with a ‘sheet-less’ day, so here’s the last one for this build.

Our first task was to mount the American Flag.  Typically, Habitat just gives the family the flag kit, but this year we had the time to proudly fly the flag. Looks great!

We then started the final paint touch ups.   The white caulking edge around the tub was too wide, so we taped along the edges and used a small painters brush to paint the wall color around the tub.    That’s really detailing :-).

We touched up the edges of the shelving in the master bedroom closet.

We then touched up anywhere there was a blue tape marker.  Some of the touch ups were so small, we had a tough time figuring out what needed paint.   Here’s Joe touching up a hand print on the ceiling.

By around noon, all the items on the list were done!   It was a nice relaxing and satisfying way to end the build :-).   We were all looking forward to the 5PM key ceremony and the 6PM celebration dinner at the Amish restaurant.

There were about 30 people in attendance for the house blessing and key ceremony.

As you can guess, it is a very heart warming ceremony.  I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house.

This team is AMAZING!  

Congratulations to Jennifer, Abby and Maddox on their new home.  I’m sure they will enjoy many years of happy memories here :-).  God is good!

 

 

This morning it was about 10 degrees warmer than yesterday :-).   Now that the house is heated, it’s easier to deal with the cool mornings.  Craig, a local pastor, shared another wonderful devotional and prayer to start our day.    Bob handed out what he thought was our last sheet for this build … woah!   We asked him if he ran out of paper or ink…lol.

Our job was to continue painting the remaining closet doors in the laundry room and furnace room, both front and back.    It got a bit tight to paint the backside of the furnace room door, but we got it done.

After finishing the doors, we moved to painting the baseboard trim in the two smaller bedrooms, the hallway and the living room area.   It’s a slow job, but it really makes the room look finished when we’re done.

Finally – by the end of the day, we had finished the last of the baseboard.

It’s amazing to see how the attention to detail by everyone on the team.   Here’s Sandy touching up the front door with a small artist’s brush.

In past builds, we would spend most of the final day of the build giving the house a deep cleaning.   We were blessed and surprised that Cheryl had arranged for a group of volunteers to come this evening (after we finished working) to clean.   To prepare for them, we picked up all of the cardboard, and emptied most everything from the house.   Wow – it looks great!   Here are some end of day pictures.

Most of the items on Bob’s punch list for tomorrow have already been completed, so we should have a short day tomorrow.   We are all very excited about the key ceremony tomorrow!   God is good.

We had another beautiful cool day here in Sullivan.   We’re all feeling excited and a bit nervous about getting everything done in time for the key ceremony at 5PM on Friday.   Bob tells us that we are in very good shape for being done on time :-).

After a wonderful devotional and prayer, Bob handed out our very long full page lists today.   He does an amazing job at figuring out how to keep everyone busy, but not running into each other. 

Our first job was installing the last bracket and shelving in one of the bedroom closets.  It didn’t take us long to complete that task, so were off to start painting.

At around 10AM everyday, we take a break.  We are very blessed to enjoy delicious snacks provided by local volunteers.   We’ve had some amazing snacks – everything from homemade muffins, cakes, brownies, peanut butter rice krispie treats, and cookies.   They are delicious, but not good for the waist line… lol.    Today’s snack was a trail mix that was amazing!   Since everyone enjoyed it so much, we asked for the recipe.   I’m definitely going to try it … and you should too :-).

After break, we were back to painting.  We started with painting both sides of the door trim, door jams, door edges and casing around the bedroom doors and the attic plug.

Then we moved on to painting the six panel doors.   The doors look nice with that design, but it’s time consuming to get into each panel with a brush.   The four bi-fold doors in each closet certainly have a lot of surface area to paint :-).   After seven hours of painting we were done with our painting task for the day.   All the work done to fill the nail holes and caulk around the doors over the last few days really paid off.  The doors look great.

Others on the team were making great progress.   The kitchen counter tops and appliances were delivered and installed.  It’s really starting to shape up!

The plumber installed the hot water heater and the fixtures in the bathroom.   Bob commented on the ‘work of art’ the plumber did to plumb the pressure relief valve piping around the water heater :-).

There were many other finishing touches made throughout the house.  The attention to the small details is really impressive.   We’re definitely getting close!  God is good.

These cold mornings remind me of why I don’t like the cold weather … lol.   Even though it started in the low 40’s this morning, it warmed up to be a beautiful sunny afternoon in the 70s.   After a devotional and morning prayer, Bob handed out another ‘full sheet-er .. oh no!’ ;-).

Our task today was to install shelving, rods and brackets in all of the closets.  We started in the laundry room and installed two adjustable shelves.  After installing the 3 wall standards (that’s a new term we picked up from our task list), we cut the shelves to the proper length.

One closet down, 3 more to go…(note the proper clearance from the electrical panel  🙂 )

The master bedroom closet was next.  It’s a large closet, so it will need three closet rods in a U-shaped configuration.    We were getting good at using multiple levels and the stud finder to place the brackets in the right place.

We then cut both the closet rods and shelves to the right length and attached them securely.  Getting a screw into the small space is a challenge, so Bob showed us how to use his long flexible bit.   He has the coolest tools! 🙂

At one point, we were trying to put the plastic end caps on the rod.  Since they are snug, it needs some coaxing with either your hand or the side of a hammer to get them on.   We had a good ‘belly laugh’ moment when the end cap kept popping off.   We had the whole team wondering who was having so much fun in the closet … lol :-).   Bob had to take our picture …. I was wiping my eyes from laughing so hard!

It looks great!

We then moved into the other two bedrooms.   We were able to complete them quickly, since we had a system going.

While we were in the closet all day, the others on the team were making great progress.   The bathroom tasks are completed, and ready for the plumber to hook up the water and the toilet.

The kitchen is ready for the counter tops, sinks and microwave to be installed tomorrow.

 

Progress was also made on installing some of the light fixtures, along with a very time consuming caulking job around all doors and baseboard trim.

We were blessed with another productive day.  God is good!

 

 

 

It was another chilly three sweatshirt morning, with temperatures in the 40’s.   We have been very blessed with great weather, with afternoon temperatures in the 70’s with clear blue skies.   I heard that the heat was hooked up today, so it should be nice and toasty tomorrow morning :-).

We had another wonderful devotional and prayer from a local pastor.  He has been joining us every Monday morning, so it’s probably the last time we will see him this year … but, already looking forward to seeing him again next year, God willing.   

Just about in chorus from the team … “Oh no, a full sheet today…lol”.   On the overall schedule, Bob said that we are in very good shape and will comfortably finish this week. 

Our first task was to transport a list of materials from Jennifer’s Dad’s garage.   Thank goodness it is very close to the worksite, since it took us three trips to move all the items on our list.  

The next task on our list was to hang door casing trim on the bedroom closets.   Since the Door Casing Trim team finished their work early, they got that task completed.    So, we started caulking door frames … and there is plenty that needs caulking.    We carefully apply caulk to every seam in the door frame and all edges.   When it’s done, it really makes them look great!   We definitely have more caulking work for us tomorrow ;-).

Even Jennifer, the future homeowner, came to help us with filling the nail holes.

Other teams were making great progress.   The kitchen cabinets are getting installed.   I even jumped in to help with holding the last wall cabinet.

The Bathroom team installed the bathroom vanity and vanity lights.

Overall, another great day!   God is good!

——————–

I wanted to share something with you from Saturday.   Since we did not have a scheduled pastor to share a devotional with us on Saturday morning, Bob shared a devotion from a Care-A-Vanner last year.  We all enjoyed it so much, we wanted a copy.   I thought you would also get some laughs, so here it is:

Devotion from Donna Burkett

• Accept the fact that some days you are the pigeon and some days you are the statue.
• Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.
• Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
• Drive carefully.. It is not only cars that can be recalled by their Maker.
• If you can’t be kind at least have the decency to be vague.
• If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
• Never buy a car you can’t push.
• Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won’t have a leg to stand on.
• Nobody cares if you can’t dance well.  Just get up and dance.
• Since it is the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.
• The second mouse gets the cheese.
• When everything is coming your way, you are in the wrong lane.
• Birthdays are good for you, the more you have the longer you live.
• We could learn a lot from crayons.  Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull.  Some have weird names and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.
• A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY
Save the earth…. It is the only planet with chocolate.

 

 

 

Since we took off on Tuesday, everyone went in this morning to get a head start on next week.   Bob tells us that we are about a day ahead of last year’s schedule.  After today…we will be in very good shape for finishing up next week :-).

The list for today focused around continuing work to install the kitchen cabinets, installing doors and trim and starting to knock out some of the punch list items.

Joe and I worked with Bob to install the three remaining prehung doors.    The first step is to check the level of the door opening.  If it’s not level, shims need to be added before the door is put in place.  Once placed in the opening, we shimmed the door until the reveal (the space between the frame and the door) is even all around.

Once the reveal is set, we nailed the door frame in place.

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Once the door was secured, Joe trimmed off the door shims so that the door casing trim could be installed.

Once all the doors were installed, Bob gave us the dimensions for the attic plug frame that needed to be cut and fastened together.

Once it dried, we installed it on the attic plug opening in the bedroom closet.

Joe then aligned the attic plug – fits perfectly :-).

We had completed all of our tasks by around lunch time, so we were done for the day.   This gave us some time to run some errands and go out for a nice Italian dinner :-).   God is good!

 

We were blessed with another sunny, cool day.   I guess when we’ve been having mornings in the 30’s, the low 40’s feels warmer …lol.  On our drive to the site, we were delayed waiting for one of the many really long freight trains that often pass through Sullivan.  We hear train whistles going at all times of the day and night.  Yesterday’s train had a second engine in the middle of the train, followed by 55 more cars!    We’re guessing that it had over 100 train cars in total.   It’s amazing to think about the logistics to get all these train cars loaded in the right order and being able to figure out the final destination for each one.

When we got to the site around 7:45am, there were some folks on the team that were already back to work finishing up floors.

After our wonderful devotional and morning prayer, Bob handed out our task list for the day.   The goal was to get all the floors done today, and get the doors and kitchen cabinets staged inside the house.  

We got right back to finishing up the bedroom we were working on.   We had a few easy rows, and then we had to cut around the closet walls.

We had to rip the last piece to get it to fit.

Shortly after lunch … ta da … we were done with the flooring :-).  

While we were working on the bedroom, the living room/kitchen floor was completed and the kitchen cabinet boxes were unloaded, unpacked and placed in the kitchen area.

Jennifer (the future homeowner in the grey shirt) came to help out this afternoon.   It’s great to get to speak with her and feel her excitement about the house.

Others on the team were starting to install interior doors.  By the end of the day, there were 3 doors installed.

Our next job was to take the cardboard from the cabinets and tape them to protect the floor from damage.

Typically our team does the final outlet wiring and installing fixtures.   This year, the electricians agreed to get these all wired for us.   Wow – that’s a big time saver!

We were blessed with another productive day.   Since we took Tuesday off, we will be going back to work tomorrow.    God is good!