It was a beautifully warm day today, but not as windy. By this afternoon, the temperatures were in the mid-80’s, and everyone was certainly feeling it. We have another warm day tomorrow, and then it should get cooler after that.
We were joined again this morning by a local pastor, who lead us in a devotional and prayer. It is such a wonderful way to start the day! Then Bob handed out our task list. Since the mudder was inside spraying texture on the walls, everyone was working to get the outside of the house finished up. The aluminum team continued their work, and completed the vented soffits and installed the remaining fascia on gutter boards, fly rafters and bird boxes. The front wall team completed the siding on the front wall and installed 3 pairs of shutters. The site prep team worked to clean up the exterior of the site – removing debris to the dumpster, grading the lot area of the driveway, mowed and cleaned up the front area, repaired the shed door, and organized the shed to make room for the flooring that will be arriving tomorrow.
Joe and I worked with Mel to install siding on the north wall. Bob wanted to give us some experience with siding, since we had not done that task yet in Sullivan. After some tips from Mel, we were off. The bottom starter strip was already installed and leveled, which made it much easier. It was actually very easy to install – the biggest challenge is to make sure that it’s square and level with the pieces on the already completed walls.
By the end of the day, all the siding was done! Here are some pictures of the other parts of the house (taken before lunch).
The electrician did some additional work to get the main panel hooked up.
We had a relaxing, but busy, weekend. We decided to wash the outside of ‘Roadie’ (the name of our Tiffin Open Road motor home). As you can imagine, it’s quite a task …. especially given how many bugs wanted to travel with us along the way ;-). We installed a pressure washer in the basement of the motor home last year, which comes in very handy for washing. Since we were on a cleaning binge, we decided to clean the inside of Roadie on Sunday and catch up on some clothes washing. Fun stuff!
We started our week with a beautiful warm and windy day. Everyone on the team was ready to go bright and early. Even before we gathered for our team meeting, the Town of Sullivan was at the job site installing the main electrical panel. They had no problem digging the trench with the machine they used!
At 8AM, we had our devotional, then our task discussion. As Bob the builder likes to say … “today is the same as yesterday, but just a little different.” So, the Aluminum team continued installing the soffits and fascia on the gutter boards. The Vinyl teams finished up all the walls except for one.
Joe and I worked with Gene to complete the crawl space cover, which is really like building a mini house. We started this morning with custom fitting the soffits on both sides, and rolling out some tar paper across the top.
We then attached the soffits and customized the tabs so that they could all be carefully wrapped along the edges.
Then we installed the drip cap.
Once all the drip caps are installed, we are ready for shingles!
FINALLY, we have the fanciest, heaviest, custom built crawl space cover ever created :-).
While the outside work was progressing, the mudder was making progress taping the sheet rock inside the house. His goal was to finish it up today, and start texturing (paint spraying) the ceiling. In preparation for painting, Bob asked everyone on the team to come inside to cover the tubs and showers, the furnace, water heater pipes and utility room flooring, and all the windows and doors.
When we taped everything up inside the house, it got a bit toasty inside. It was close to 90 degrees this afternoon, so it gave us incentive to finish this task up quickly :-).
It was a beautiful, cool and windy day here in Sullivan – a great day to work outside all day! A local pastor was not available to join us for devotional this morning, so Bob shared a recent article from Habitat from Humanity. It was about a woman with 5 young children who 25 years ago turned to Habitat to help her get a safe affordable home in which to raise her children. Her 5 children grew up in their Habitat home and were all able to attend college. She credits their success to Habitat and her ability to provide a safe environment for them in which to grow and thrive. Now, 25 years later, she was able to make her final mortgage payment and partake in the local Habitat affiliates tradition of burning the mortgage papers. It was a touching interview where she explained how Habitat changed her life and that of her entire family!
Bob then handed our our daily assignments. We had 5 teams, all working on different items on the outside of the house. There was an Aluminum team who worked on getting the soffits and fan vents installed.
The Front Porch team worked on wrapping the beam with fascia and working on the front porch ceiling.
The Vinyl Starter team worked on installing the outside corner posts and began siding the south end wall.
The Vinyl Wall team was working to complete the back wall.
Joe and I were on the Final Framing team with Gene. Our first task was to build the attic plug. We first measured the opening, and then went to work to cut the OSB to size, add drywall on the bottom, and then add two pieces of insulation on top.
Our second task was to build a crawl space cover … but not just a cover, it’s basically going to be a mini house with trusses, shingles and siding. Here’s the opening we will be covering:
There was quite a bit of planning and measuring…
We custom cut some small trusses as the outside of the frame, and notched the ends so that it would tuck under the vinyl siding. It was designing and building as we went along.
We then layered some OSB on the top, so the ‘mini roof’ is now ready for shingles and vinyl next week.
Well, that’s a wrap for week 3! It’s been an exhausting and fulfilling week. We actually get the weekend ‘off’ … so we will definitely be sleeping late tomorrow morning ;-).
It was a cold morning here in Sullivan … especially for us Floridians. When Joe got up around 4AM, he saw that the temperature in the motorhome had dropped to 53 degrees. So, he turned on the heat and the fireplace, so it would be nice and warm when we got up around 6AM.
At the site, it was still a bit muddy … but it was certainly dryer than yesterday. Since it was a sunny and windy day, the ground continued to improve during the day. After our devotional from a local pastor, Bob gave out the daily assignments. The goal this morning was to get the interior of the house ready for the mudder to start. Some of the team checked each screw used for the drywall to make sure it was indented and ready for the plaster. Joe and I were on the clean-up crew. We had to make sure all the unused drywall was put outside in a garbage pile, remove everything from the floor in each room, sweep the floors and then vacuum any debris from under the drywall and in the electrical boxes.
Everything inside the house was cleaned before lunch, so everyone moved to their tasks outside. Joe and I worked with Gene to install a footer board under the front and back doors.
While we were working on our tasks, the rest of the team continued work on the exterior soffits and started the vinyl siding.
I think most of the team will be siding tomorrow … should be fun 🙂
It rained most of the night here at Sullivan … and it did not stop until around noon today. We were thankful that we were working inside again today. After our inspirational morning devotional from a local pastor, we once again got our ‘to do’ list from Bob. As Bob likes to say – ‘it’s like yesterday, just a little different” :-). The overall team goal is to finish the drywall and get everything cleaned up and prepped for the ‘mudder’ contractor to come in to tape and prep the walls for painting by Thursday at noon. Since we have quite a few overachievers in our group, we were focused on trying to beat that goal.
So, today was about some hard work and heavy lifting. Joe and I continued our tasks of measuring, cutting drywall, fitting it into place and holding it in position for mounting. We finished the walls of one of the smaller bedrooms, finished the walls in the master bedroom and then helped with finishing up the hallway.
Everyone made great progress in the morning, and thought that we could potentially get all the drywall up today … ahead of schedule. After a delicious lunch at a local church, the team was eager to get all the last pieces mounted. It was like a coordinated dance – pretty cool stuff!
Well, by 3PM, we had all the drywall up! Tomorrow morning we will clean up the floors, and do a final check to make sure it’s in good shape for the ‘mudder’ to start.
It rained here all night, and most of the day. Bob and Richard had gotten to the job site a little early this morning to lay down OSB in the mud, so we had a path to get into the house without too much mud … which was much appreciated. After our morning devotional from a local pastor, we got our assignments along with a drywall briefing.
Since it was raining, we had all 16 of us working in the house at the same time … and all working with either 8 ft or 12 ft sheets of drywall. As usual, Bob did an amazing job at creating teams that could work in different areas of the house, which worked out really well. There was a bedroom ceiling team, a living room ceiling team, an east side closet team, a bathroom team and a west side closet team. The appropriate number of drywall sheets had been placed in different areas of the house yesterday, which worked out really well.
Joe and I worked with Bill as part of the east side closet team. Our first task was to complete the laundry room, which had quite a few outlets, vents and fixtures to cut out. Bill was certainly experienced at doing this, and had many ‘cool’ tools to help make the job easier. Joe and I measured all the pieces, cut them, and placed them on the wall.
Ta da …. a sheetrocked utility room (exciting, I know …. lol)
While we were busy with this closet and the Master Bedroom closet, the other teams were making amazing progress. We had two drywall ceiling lifts, which made lifting much easier.
Almost all of the team building with us are seasoned veterans at building houses for Habitat. Many of them bring a fully stocked pickup truck full of the latest tools and useful gadgets. Terry, who has built over 50 Habitat houses, had this laser tool that enabled you to transfer the location of the ceiling electrical box to the floor. Once the sheet rock was installed, you could then re-transfer the location back to the ceiling. Very cool!
By our 3PM stopping time, we had exceeded all the goals for today. This puts us a little ahead of schedule for tomorrow, so hopefully we will be able to finish up the drywall. Wish us luck ;-).
We’re back for Team 2! We are joined by 4 new Care-A-Vanners, along with the three couples that were here from the beginning. We arrived on Sunday afternoon, and were assigned a new location at the ‘campground’. Since we are the only people without a car, Bob gives us a spot where we can easily pull our motorhome out as needed. After hooking up electric, water and grey water hoses, we were ready! ‘Happy Hour’ had already been going on at the pavilion behind the church, so we joined in and got to meet the new team members.
Some of us decided to head over to the local VFW for some dinner. The people there are super friendly, and by now, they recognize us as regulars 😉 It was nice to have a break for a week, but we’re ready to get back to work.
We were quickly able to get back into our routine, being ready to leave promptly at 7:45AM.
Going into the house this morning was amazing. It is still hard to believe what we were able to accomplish in 2 weeks. During the break week, the electrical and plumbing were roughed in, the bathtub was mounted, and the concrete front and back pads were poured.
As is typical, we started our day with a devotion from a local church. The prayer that she shared was very appropriate, and touching. She graciously agreed to send us a copy (which is included at the bottom of this post). Bob then handed out our ‘to do’ sheets. Our goal today was to have the house completely insulated, and all the drywall moved into the house. Everyone on the team dove right in to the list of tasks. Here’s the list for the insulation crew (that we were on): Hang insulation on all exterior walls, insulate all exterior window/door headers with 3.5″ insulation, Insulate around all windows, Insulate around Front and Back Doors, Insulation Top Plates to Duravents creating a dam, Verify all Stud Guards in Place at piping/wiring runs, Fill in all Piping & wiring top/bottom plate holes with foam, Mark Floors with Stud Locations, Mark Top Plate with Truss Locations, Vacuum and clean out entire house of everything to make room for drywall. Whew …. what a list!
But – we got it all done by about 1:30. Joe and I started by insulating windows/doors and piping/wiring holes with expanding insulating foam …. using around 8 cans!
We then moved to insulating the non-standard exterior wall openings. We used N95 masks to protect us from the insulation.
After the insulation was complete, it was time to move in 90 sheets of drywall into the house. Joe (and the strong men) had a coordinated system for moving them into the right rooms. I was on the ‘drywall stocking supervisory team’ …. which basically meant that I stayed out of the way ;-).
It was definitely a very successful day today …. topped off by another relaxing happy hour in the pavilion.
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Here’s the Home Building Prayer, that I mentioned earlier:
For the blessings of this dwelling, O Lord: • for the fast foundation, • for the roof stretched overhead as a sheltering canopy, • for the luxury & security of windows and doors, • for these strong walls staying wind & weather, • for comforts of floor and furniture, of heating and cooling, of fresh running water and electrical wiring, and for all fixtures, appliances, and conveniences that make our lives here less toilsome, we give you thanks, O Lord, acknowledging that all provision is your provision.
This place is a gift. The sharing of life within these walls is a gift.
And so, the necessary investment of time and resources toward building & maintaining this dwelling need not be regarded as a burden, but as a good stewardship and a glad opportunity.
Give grace therefore that we might now perform the task before us, not in grudging irritation, but in gentleness and generosity of spirit, as a caretaker of your blessings, and as an act of loving service to all family, friends, or strangers who will shelter here or enjoy fellowship beneath this roof.
In the midst of these labors, grant us • practical wisdom to perceive problems, • Imagination to consider their solutions, • and skill to remedy them. Give us also humility and discernment, that we might know when a task is beyond our ability and ask for help.
Guide our hands in these endeavors, O Lord, and yet even more, we pray that you would shape our hearts in the doing of them, that as we labor to build this dwelling, you would be ever at work within us, your Spirit revealing and repairing our own places of • brokenness, • ungratefulness, • shame, and pride, and so, making us an ever more fit habitation for the indwelling Christ, and a truer citizen of the coming kingdom.
The team was excited to work on the last items needed to get the house ‘dried in’ today. We were also sad knowing that 3 couples will be leaving Sullivan, since it’s the end of the Team 1 build. There is a week ‘off’ for volunteers, so that the contractors can get access to the house (roofing, electric, plumbing). We are taking a week off, but will be back for Team 2, starting on September 20th.
Joe and I were on the Interior Framing Crew today, working on quite a few of tasks. We finished up the insulation dam at the front porch return wall. It was a triangular piece that we had to cover, so it was a bit of a challenge.
We then anchored the refrigerator wall to a truss, to better secure that wall.
We then started to install drywall nailing blocks for the ceiling. These plates overhang the top of the wall, so that the drywall can be attached.
The rest of the team were busy on assorted projects around the house. A few folks were working to hang the drywall in the furnace room, so that the furnace can be installed by a contractor next week.
Others were working on installing the three remaining front windows.
Another productive day! The team ended a bit early this afternoon, to give the people leaving the build some time to get packed up and on the road. Joe and I also left for a week of traveling during the contractor week. We will be back in Sullivan ready to go. I hear drywall and exterior siding are the next big items on the list when we get back 🙂
It was a beautiful cool and sunny day – about 57 degrees this morning! Driving up to the house this morning, it was nice to see it really taking shape.
The devotional from a local pastor was especially touching. He told a story about 3 construction workers. Each was asked what they do for a living. The first said he shoveled dirt into his wheelbarrow and moved it to another place. The second said he worked to provide for his family. The third said that he is building a glorious cathedral. His message was that we should not think about our work here as the daily tasks required to build a house, but rather that this house will provide a home for this family – and it will provide shelter for many, many years to come. As always, it’s a great way to start the day!
After our devotional, Bob the Builder hands out sheets of paper with the tasks for the day. Since today had so many jobs going on at the same time, I thought you’d be interested in seeing his list from today.
As you can see from the list, it was a very busy day. Our first task was to complete the gutter board on the front of the house, and tie it into the Rafter tail. The rafter needed to be trimmed, so that the gutter board would be level.
We then added a truss member to the three trusses that were installed backwards. We had to mirror what was pre-installed on the other side.
Our next task was to build an insulation dam at the front porch, which would stop the blown insulation from being blown onto the deck.
While we were busy with our tasks, there was a team on the roof installing the decking. They were able to deck the entire roof, and install the underlayment on the back side of the house.
There was also a team working on installing the hurricane clips, duravents in the ceiling for ventilation, and 3 windows.
The house is getting really close to our goal of having it ‘dried in’ by tomorrow!
Tomorrow is the end of the first two week session. Three couples will be leaving us tomorrow., two of which are going directly to a build in Minnesota :-). To celebrate, the local Habitat affiliate hosts a dinner for us. A local farm uses their garage to catering, so we had dinner beside some huge farming equipment. It is amazing to think about how much I don’t know about farming! The sheer size of this stuff is crazy … the tires are taller than I am … and I don’t think I could even lift one of these wrenches off the rack!
After our morning devotional from a local pastor, everyone was eager to get the rest of the trusses installed. We had completed about half the trusses yesterday. The worksite was really muddy this morning from some severe thunderstorms we had last night (as you can see from the large puddles in this picture). Fortunately, we remembered to bring our boots, but the ground was really sloppy and sticky.
By 9:45, all the trusses were up! Here’s a picture of Joe securing the last end gable.
The crew inside were working on securing the trusses and installing the ‘rat run’ to tie everything together. The ‘rat run’ is basically a series of off-set 2×4 beams that are tied in across multiple trusses. I was hoping that the naming didn’t really originate from rats running in the ceiling, but when I asked, that seemed to be the reason. If you get rats or mice in your ceiling … that’s how they get around 😉
While Joe was working on the trusses, I was working with a team to install the wrap on the south wall. The wind gave us some challenges as we worked to unroll a giant roll across the wall while keeping it level and tight.
Around 10AM, the team took a much deserved break. Cheryl from Habitat brought us some home-made blueberry cake. Even though we’re working hard, it’s tough to lose weight on this build!
After the break, Joe and I got the task of installing the safety rail on both the north and south side walls. To meet OSHA guidelines for doing roofing work, there needs to be a safety rail installed which is at least 40 inches high. We used the tractor to lift an assembled box about 2 feet from the roof. Once that was secured, we installed vertical posts that extended 39 inches above the roof. Joe was on some pretty tall ladders, so it was good that the ground had dried up a bit. The wind was a bit of a challenge, but not as bad as yesterday.
We’re right on schedule to meet our goal of having the house dried in before the end of the week! Another amazing day in Sullivan 🙂
