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.