12/05/09

A lot of people say it's is the small things that make a house a home, well thankfully our house is in that stage where we are doing small things to finish out 1606 North Gilmor. Great news considering the dedication and handover to the family is in two weeks. The habitat staff installed kitchen cabinets during last week so that we could focus on finishing some little details: grouting the last tile sections, hanging medicine cabinets in the bathrooms, painting, and so forth. It is really coming together now. Check out some photos.

Here is a view of one of the bathrooms, complete with tile, trim and even a toilet and sink.

Here is a view of the first floor stairs, complete with paint, and stained wood banisters and covers.

For the peice de resistance, a view of the kitchen with tile, cabinets, and countertops. Sweet!

11/21/09 Workday

The weeks keep rolling by and the dedication date of December 19th keeps getting closer and closer. Good thing the house is almost ready. In the last two weekends we finally managed to get all the tiling done. This included finishing the diagonal tile in the kitchen, powder room, and basement landing, as well as the two upstairs bathrooms and the foyer walkin area. All in all I estimate around 320 square feet of tile that was laid down. It looks great now that the pain of tiling it all is over =). We grouted some of the tile that was laid the week before, and got a lot of other little jobs done too. Hand rails were hung, linen closets were finished and painted, and we cleaned and poly uthathaned the exposed brick wall in the foyer area. It's starting to look real good. We even have a few outlets installed so we don't need a generator anymore. By next week the plumbing and lights will be done too by professionals.

Here's a pic of the kitchen floor being grouted in the back area, and just finishing the front. Below that is an image of a bedroom with finished window sills.

Our 11/07/09 Workday

How much do we love tiling? Well, at the start of this workday, we all loved it. The tile we put down last Saturday was fixed to the floor, and it looked gorgeous. So we were all pumped to get started on finishing the areas that weren't done yet on the kitchen floor. Not too many Northrop people showed up this time, in part because of the short notice of our new every-weekend schedule, but thankfully Matt, Alex, and Tina showed up since they had been there the week before and were now also tiling experts. =) Sandtown threw a bunch of University of Maryland folk in our backyard in order to give our house some sod, and to finish the deck stairs and fence while the rest of us tiled our little butts off. The kitchen floor area is now finished, and the "foyer" connecting the kitchen, powder room, and basement landing is underway. We also got some more work done on the closet shelves and window sills. We will be back next weekend for more tiling, so I hope we get more tiling experts, if not we should have a bunch by the end of the workday.


Below are a few pictures. The first is the kitchen floor at the beginning of the day, while the second is at the end, after lots of tile cutting and placing. The last pic is of the beautiful backyard.

10/31 Workday

Another successful Saturday on our house. We had lots of volunteers both from Northrop and from LaTisha and her family. The main goal of our workday was to get started laying tile down onto the kitchen floor. I know this would be a daunting task and managed to get Mike and Craig to help me Friday finish laying the cement backerboard in the kitchen and figure out where the keystone tile would go. The keystone tile sets the pattern for the whole floor and should make the pattern be balanced across the floor, i.e. if only a third of a tile is needed one the left wall, a third of a tile should be at the right wall as well. We decided to lay a diagonal pattern for the kitchen floor which made finding the keystone a little harder. But once Saturday was underway, we just started mortaring tiles next to the keystone tile and moved out from it. Having the keystone tile in the center of the floor allowed several tile layers to work in their own directions and avoided having too many people in one spot. A bunch of people preped the tile by slapping mortar on the tile back, while still others worked on cleaning the tile and spacing between the tiles. The kitchen was a very busy place, but we successfully laid about 130 tile, or 130 square feet. It is going to look great when it is all finished. The rest of the volunteer team on Saturday worked on getting window sills made as well as handling lots of other smaller tasks. Here is a picture of the kitchen pattern laid out. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the tile mortared down, but I'll get one next Saturday.

-Rob

Oct 17th and Oct 24th

Another two weeks of working on the house have gone by, and the house is really taking shape. Paint appeared on the walls when we finished on the 17th, and caulking all the trim and doors and various other places continued on the 24th. It is amazing how many things need a dab of caulk to finish their look. Can't see all the nails and holes we made in the trim doors and the like.

But our focus on the 24th was to get started on the kitchen floor. Through some luck and graces of an actual interior designer, we obtained a bunch of ceramic tile. So we are tiling the kitchen, powder room and upstairs bathrooms with the tile. The only problem with that is the fact that laying tile takes a lot more time and effort than most other surfaces. So on the 24th we began laying cement backerboard on the kitchen subfloor. The backerboard acts as a stabilizer to keep the tile floor from flexing as you walk across it. This prevents tiles from cracking and the grout from being pushed out too.

Here are two pics. One is of the a few of us installing the backerboard, and the other is one of the upperstairs bedrooms looking sharp with paint and everything.

Major Update - 8/8/09 through 10/03/09

So our blog has not been updated in a while, and it is my fault. As summer was coming to a close I ran to the beach, to the mountains, and out to sea to enjoy the last days of my twenties and of the closing summer, leaving Kurt and the crew to work on the house without me. A lot got accomplished but no one had a camera to capture all the progress.

When I last wrote, the roof was ready for tarring. Thankfully, Habitat has a professional on hire to complete this task since it is a messy and very stinky job. Professionals also used a chemical striping agent to remove the pink paint off the front of the house to expose the quality brick underneath.

We were also very focused on the framing of interior walls when I last posted, and that effort continued nicely through the summer. A team build activity took place on 8/13 where during a standard work-day a bunch of Norhtrop folk from the same group came to work on the house and learn how they can better work together as a team. What a great way to get out of the normal day-day of the rat race! Here are some of the folk raising a bathroom wall upstairs, as well as the working crew for the team build.

After the workday on Aug 23rd, framing was done, and the Habitat folk hired drywall professionals to come in and drywall the whole house. HVAC people also came in to install everything but the furnace, and plumbers and electricians also added their talents to include the plumbing and electrical frameworks.

September 19th was a rough day for volunteers, and is one of my least favorite tasks of restoring a house - installing insulation. It is a nasty job requiring full garb and face masks to keep the fiber glass insulation from scratching you up. I'm secretly a little glad that I missed it, but don't tell anyone. =)

Here Mike poses for his picture. Nice job Mike on stapling the insulation to the ceiling joists, and for duct taping over the seem between your gloves and your shirt. After this workday and some help from some U of Maryland volunteers during the week, the insulation was complete.

With so much work accomplished, and the process moving forward so nicely, Kurt and I decided to throw a little party. All the Habitat staff we work with were invited as were all Northrop volunteers. But most importantly the family that will inherit the house came as well. Latisha or Tisha for short and her four kids came for the short workday and the picnic. We did a bunch of trim work on the house as well as installed a bunch of doors before the picnic - which consisted of burgers and hot dogs. My suspicion about these picnics turned out to be true too - that condiments make the picnic. We had three different kinds of cheese for the burgers, grilled onion, tomatoe, pickles, avacado, lettuce, ketchup, mustard, and relish plus grapes, chips, cookies, and brownies. All these choices plus some descent sunny weather made the picnic great. A bunch of alumni volunteers from this house and past ones showed up to meet the family and enjoy the day. It was great.

Check out everyone who showed up: Tisha, the future home owner is wearing the light blue shirt in the front row surrounded by some of her family and friends. I also want to give a shout out to Danny and Bo - two Habitat guys who are critical to us getting the house built to code - seen waiting for their burgers to be cooked. Did I mention we had turkey, beef, and veggie burgers? LOL that makes for a lot of burget / hot dog and condiment combinations. My dad also made an appearance at habitat since my family was in town to celebrate my 30th birthday. Seen next to me while Kurt mans the grill - man that food looks good.

And as some final photos of this large post - here is the house as we left it on October 3rd.

Photo 1 is taken from the kitchen looking towards the front of the house, while photo 2 is from within the master bedroom on the third floor.

7/25/09 Workday

Another fantastic day for working on the house. It was a bright sunny day, perhaps too bright and sunny for working on the roof, as sun burn and dehydration were rampant for those of us up there. The rest of the crew worked on framing the third floor and finished up second floor framing. All the framing wood first though had to be hauled into the house which took all of us half an hour.
The roof was partially completed the day before by another work crew, so we had to just finish up the front of the house which took a while due to merging the old wood, with arches and elaborate wood carvings which serve as attack venting, with the raised new plywood. After all the plywood was nailed down into the rafters, roofing paper is nailed down in overlapping rows to make a water seal. Roofing professionals will now come in and tar the roof.

The first picture is of the ton of framing we got done on the third floor, while the second is the mostly completed roof with its roofing paper laid out and nailed down. The last picture is of the crew on the deck, looking sharp, looking real sharp.

July 11th

So it seems like it has been a while since we posted, but it has only been a few weeks. We missed our second work week in June because Habitat was closed. The whole week prior to our scheduled Saturday, the Sandtown Habitat folk were inundated with volunteers for their annual Build Week. This is when teachers, high school kids, and employees from various companies volunteer a whole week of their time to the community. All these volunteers split up and work on all the houses that are being built, including our own. On our house, they laid half inch plywood over our subfloor on the first and second floors. All the rain we got in the spring and early summer caused them to wrap real bad (due to the lack of a roof), so the extra plywood helps flatten everything out. The Build Week group also finished the 3rd floor subfloor, almost finished adding a deck to the back of the house, and began framing the external walls of the 3rd floor for the roof. It is a shame that our Norhtrop family couldn't have been a part of that!!!


While we there this Saturday we had a bunch of new faces, including some interns and new employees to Norhtrop, some kids that came with their dad, and my wife. We got a decent amount of work done too, including adding the finishing touches to the deck, filling in a ton of brick pockets, framing some major walls on the second floor, and lots of framing on the third floor. The house is getting close to being ready to have the professionals come in and install plumbing, electrical, and HVAC. We just have to get a roof on this puppy, and add some more interial walls, oh and pump all the rain water out of the basement (an interior swimming pool just doesn't add value to a house these days, lol).


'Til next time, check out some pics. The first is looking out the third floor windows and missing roof. The second pic is a top view of the deck which will be awesome when finished. The third is the majority of the work crew, hope to have them sign up again soon.

June 13th, 2009

This workday was a little more difficult than normal. Our Habitat advisor Bo was MIA again, and so we didnt end up getting tools until 10 am, which left us standing around for an hour. But, we also discovered that the stairwell on the second floor was not quite in place, so adding the joists for the stairwell for the third floor had to be adjusted. Still we managed to not get rained on despite the dark clouds and even managed to get some framing done, some plywood laid down on the third floor, and joists hung around the stairwell on the third floor.

One of the framed walls we added was for the stairs on the first floor, which required removing the nice ladder platform to add the wall and then put it back. The second picture is where we left off at the end of the day on the second floor. You can see we close to finishing the joists for the third floor and can get focused on putting subfloor down.

Finally, here is my take on an artistic photo of our house in progress. Enjoy!

May 30th, 2009

It was a beautiful sunny Saturday to get work done on our house, and we got a lot done. But, some of us paid the price of all that sun with a little sun burn. We removed the last remanants of the old third floor which turned out to be a bit more exciting than desired. A piece of mortar fell on my head as we cut a joist down and we soon discovered a small carpendar bee's nest hidden in some of the old insulation. Most of the bees moved off, but Anthony got stung on the cheeck, doh. After all that excitement, we continued framing and laying new joists, while another team began framing the walls on the first floor. A team building activity the week before had finished up the subfloor on the second floor, so we are really moving on the framing which is good since the plan is to have most of the framing done by the end of June. We need to get working on the roof after that since there is no roof at all right now, leaving our nice subfloor exposed to rain and sun - a major warping combination.

In_the left photo, framing of the kitchen gets finished up on the first floor. While on the right is a photograph looking up throught the second floor to the third floor joists and the lack of roof.

May 16th, 2009

Saturday was another successful day at the house. The weather looked like it could rain on us heavily at any moment, but it managed to hold out for the whole day. The sun even came out for a few minutes, but we were glad to see it cloud over again, because the sunshine and humidity weren't all that pleasing.

Our jobs for the day were to get more joists added to the second level, to begin adding subfloor onto those joists, and to seal up any old brick pockets on the first and second floors to pass fire code. by sealing the floors smoke from one floor can't simply rise up into the next floor, making containing a fire much easier, and less deadly.

Here Craig is sealing one the brick pockets with brick and mortar. We got all the floors sealed by the end of the day. We also got the joists in over the stairs part. We had to hang some hangers by the stairs to hold up the joists. We had some issues securing the 2" beams into the 2.5" hangers, but some engineering took care of the problem. We cut some 1/2" plywood to fill the gap and nailed everything in place.

Here is Kurt hanging around the joists, which are pretty wobbly without any subfloor connecting them. Being safe requires walking cautiously and keeping your center of gravity low.

This is a picture of the second floor while standing on some of the subfloor (a much easier thing to do than what Kurt was doing). We covered up the nice floor and good subfloor sheets with a tarp since there is no roof. We lost several sheets of plywood to warping and mold by not covering them up the past several weeks, so we learned our lesson.

May 2nd, 2009

Work on 1606 N. Gilmor continues very steadily, despite still not having a roof over our heads. Thankfully, the rainy month of May granted clear enough skies on Saturday to not work in the rain. Framing of the first floor continued, and as the framing advanced we could begin adding joists of the second floor. Things got a little hairy around the stairs, since double joists had to be made and lifted into place, and one framed section of the wall had to be moved by 6 inches. Although that seems like a small amount, the wall had to be pried up from the floor, cut, moved, and nailed back to the floor. So it was a lot of work, but for structural support, we have to align the studs of the wall with the joists, since the joists sit on top of the frame.

This is a new method for Sandtown Habitat, as we used to chissel out the brick walls to make room for the joists, which was a messy and slow process. Below is a picture of us getting ready to add a new joist. To the right is a picture of the whole crew. Great job guys and gals, we got a lot done. Thanks for your help, and thanks for checking out the blog.

-Rob

4/18/09

When we arrived, we noticed that someone had been in the house, not because anything was missing, but because the entire 1st floor had been built.

Our first task for the day was to remove what was left of the 2nd floor. It seemed like an easy task at first, but turned out to be a long job...

We kept at it, and finished up around lunch time.

Our next job was to start building the 1st floor walls to get ready for installation of the 2nd floor. A big job logistically, but we managed to get it put together.

And it even fit into place!

Great job all. A great work day, beautiful weather, and success. Next date, we plan to finish up the 1st floor wall and start putting in the beams for the second floor.

April 4th - Our first Day

Saturday was our first official volunteer day at the house. Fifteen people from Northrop Grumman plus Kurt and I were there to kick off the day which was very windy. We were also treated to several inches of rain water awaiting us inside the house from all the April showers and from the giant hole in the roof. The Sandtown Habitat folk had hired a professional crew to rebrick the back and side wall and also to clear out the basement and first floor. So the house looked a lot different than the last time we were there.

After pumping out the water, we removed the last remnants of the first floor by the front door. We then began the process of framing the basement. One of the first tasks was to hang a long joist across the side wall and level and secure it. This gave us a reference line to frame to. due to the basement not being completely level, each stud of the basement wall frame had to be cut to fit. It took a while but did manage to get the first frame built and stood up along the wall. A large crew also tackled the task of removing dead shrubbery and trees around the backyard.

Welcome!

Hi all,

We would like to welcome you to the Northrop Grumman sponsered blog for Habitat for Humanity. Northrop Grumman (a fortune 500 company, and a major defense contractor) supports Habitat for Humanity throughout its business locations around the United States. The Electronic Systems Division of Northrop just provided the necessary $50,000 to sponser a house in west-side Baltimore (near where hit show The Wire takes place). The goal of this blog is to track the progression of the house from a run-down unlivable space with a collapsing roof to a beautiful home providing a selected Habitat family a place to live and grow. The Habitat affiliate we are working with is called Sandtown Habitat and our house is located at 1606 North Gilmor Street which is a few blocks away from Sandtown headquarters. To the left is a picture of our house from the front. Looks good doesn't it? Well, as they say don't judge a book by its cover, take a look at some other photos. It is definitely in bad shape at the moment. Let's see what we can do to fix it up.

As you can see from the side, the roof collapse has caused some pretty significant damage. Not to mention the fact that every rain, snow, sleet, etc. easily gets into the upper floors, weakening the structure even more. The right side photo is from the second floor. We made it up the first flight of stairs despite how they lean significantly but we didnt dare go up to the third floor. You can see the roof (or what's left of it) on the second floor! We have some work to do, care to join us?