Saturday December 10th

This workday was an excellent day. We had a big crowd and could work on both houses at the same time. But more importantly, it was a big day for Sandtown Habitat for Humanity as they celebrated the 300th house dedication. What an accomplishment! Some of us have been around for quite a while and maybe have helped finish 10 houses but to realize the 300 home mark in an area of 4 blocks by 4 blocks has really pulled up the community and shared a lot of hoe with deserving families. It is definitely one of the reasons that many of volunteers love coming out and helping.

On this Saturday, we handled a variety of jobs including wall framing, laying joists for the third floor, and installing window boxes. The thought of having windows to keep out the cold in future workdays was very motivating, but without being able to access the third floor since the joists and subfloor have not yet been installed, we were unable to get window boxes up there. No windox boxes, means no windows so we will have to wait a little longer it have the houses sealed up from the cold.

Here, the crew works on installing window boxes on 1630:


The crew here installs joists for the third floor:


Framing goes up:


The crew we had Saturday:


Our next workday is January 7th, so we hope to see you there.

October 29th, 2011

It seems like the weather is always mentioned in our blog, so why not keep to that theme and say it was pretty cold this Saturday, and was in fact the first October snow in Maryland since my birth year in 1979 (you do the math if you want to know how old that makes me, lol). Although Baltimore did not get a lot of snow, the cold temperatures and lack of windows in our houses made getting work done a bit challenging. The Habitat staff was surprised we even showed up, as most groups canceled after learning the Saturday forecast. But us Northrop Grumman folk come from strong stock and committed to working the whole day in the cold. Hot coffee and hot pizza were big attractions during the day, and a hot shower left pretty sweet after the day was complete.
Our crew focused on 1630 for the whole day in part because it was slightly behind 1632 in receiving its subfloor for the second floor, and in part because we had just enough people for one house. Kurt made an appearance after missing several weeks, and although it was great to have him back, he had to work out a few kinks. Namely, he forgot that subfloor most all be laid in a straight line and be laid with the grove facing the next row to be laid. Subfloor plywood has a tongue on one side and a grove on the other along the length of the plywood, so that adjacent sheets can be tucked into one another to lock the floor in place as a single unit. If the sheets are out of alignment or if the tongue and grove doesn't line up, the floor isn't as stable and is prone to lots of squeaking. Kurt remembered to place a line down the length of the house to keep the first row of subfloor lines up, but on the second sheet flipped the grove with the tongue end. Result: we had to ply up the second sheet of plywood and flip it around, which is not an easy task, especially when the sheet was nailed in place along all the joists it rested on. After we managed to ply it up and flip it, it got nailed down again but was off the line. Result, we had to ply it up a second time and correct it. Needless to say it was a slow start, but we all make mistakes and found out Kurt was far better at prying up nailed down plywood than the rest of us. So we at least had some good laughs. Once we got into the flow of things, our crew managed to lay the entire subfloor over the course of the day for 1630 N Gilmor. Boo yah! I did not take any pictures though because of the snow and the eagerness of everyone to get home to warm up, watch football, and celebrate the Halloween weekend. So you will have to wait until the next blog to see our handy work, or better yet come on up and see it for yourself.

Saturday October 15th, 2011

Work continues smoothly on both our houses at 1630 and 1632 N Gilmor St, Baltimore, MD. We had yet another Team Build session come out Friday October 14th, where a specific group from Northrop Grumman ES volunteered together on their day off. We are continually grateful for the amount of groups interested in assisting our efforts in renovation these two houses. We also had a good sized group come out on Saturday to pick up right where the Friday team left off.

The Friday team worked hard and got half of the joists placed and stop-blocked for the second floor. We are using 2" by 10" solid wood instead of the I-beams we were using on the last two houses. This makes the joists much heavier but allows us to space the joists further apart and require less wood to build a solid structure. Stop blocks are then cut into 22" sections and placed along the framing to keep the joists spaced at exactly 2 feet intervals. The stop blocks also help keep the joists from twisting and moving when combined with bracket spacers in the middle of the joists. Once the joists are in place, subfloor sheets of plywood are glued and nailed over the joists to create a stable floor. The Friday team began laying subfloor for the second floor of 1632 N Gilmor St.

On Saturday the volunteer crew picked up right where the houses were left off at and finished laying joists for the the second floor of 1630, and finished most of the second floor subfloor in 1632. One problem that had to be tackled in both houses was framing the front wall of both houses, and getting a stable structure up against the front wall for the subfloor so that the framing of the rest of the front of the house would also be stable. Although it took some time and care due to the presence of windows and the front door, we came up with good solutions. And so progress can continue when we get back to work November 5th.

Here Dave Fine (who took these pictures) nails in a stop block.


Here the team works on laying subfloor in 1632 N Gilmor


Here the team works on the front wall framing in 1630.

Weekend of Oct 1rst, 2011

As Fall continues to settle into Maryland, work continues on our houses, and indeed on all the houses within Sandtown's focus block on N Gilmor St in Baltimore. We had Bill Marsh and his team come for a Team Build on Friday Sept. 30th and had a normal volunteer day on October 1rst. Our normal volunteer days are suffering a bit attendance-wise, perhaps folk are too busy preparing for winter, or perhaps our new volunteer tool that NGC has us using isn't as great as we had hoped for, but our team of Kurt, Andrew, and I are trying our best to refresh the volunteer pool, so if you are interested in the least, please come out. Northrop and Sandtown would love to have you. As always, no experience is necessary, as we teach as we go.

Anyways, back to the houses. 1632 received a coat of blue board on the inside of the first floor walls, which is dense insulation to help keep the house cooler in summer and warmer in the winter. Framing was then placed over the blue board.
Here the Friday team works on installing the blue board:

Here the Friday team works on finishing touches to the right wall framing before putting it in place:

The view of 1632 at the end of Friday:



For 1630 N Gilmor, that house did not yet have its subfloor installed, and the teams from Friday and Saturday worked to finish the subfloor. The same process applied to 1632 will now be applied to 1630 to insulate the house and to get ready to install joists for the second floor.

Here the team finishes the subfloor on the first floor by trimming back overhang over the stairway.


Many thanks to Bill Marsh and his team as well as our regular Saturday volunteers.

Sept. 17, 2011

Fall has rolled in in Maryland, but work continues on our houses. Some folk might like to sit on their couch all weekend and watch football, but there are still enough go getters within the Northrop Grumman ranks and in the world to pitch in to build some houses for Habitat. Granted I watched bunch of football too, but Saturday morning and afternoon were dedicated to our homes. We also had a group of 15 NGC folk come and volunteer on Friday, while a gang of students from UMBC joined our efforts Saturday.

Both houses are still in the inital stages of build up. Joists were laid across the middle of the first floor on both houses, and we finished the back end of 1630 by the end of Saturday since we had to first build an exterior support wall from the basement floor up to the first floor to support the joists. 1632 North Gilmor did not that effort, and as such the joists were completed and subfloor was laid across the joists. By the end of Saturday, our team had finished the subfloor on the first floor, so that the next job in this house is to begin framing the exterior walls. Meanwhile 1630 N Gilmor can get subfloor laid down on the first floor.

Here is the Team from Friday posing outside of 1632 N Gilmor after a hard days work. Many thanks to them.


Here is 1630 with joists laid out and secured:


Here is 1632 with the subfloor work in progress:


Finally thanks to the UMBC crew and NGC crew that worked on Saturday.

August 8th, 2011

This workweek got off with a bang with our first Team Build on Friday August 7th for our dual-house project. This was promptly followed by a regular Saturday workday, ensuring we got a lot of work done quickly. After much debate, mostly ended by the discovery of termite damage, the decision was made to gut 1632 down to its outer shell. The plan had originally been to leave as much there as possible, but the floors were slightly uneven due to settling and due to some improper construction techniques by whoever remodeled the home two decades ago. The termite damaged wood was disposed of while the good joists were saved with the intent to use them again.
Some of this demolition work was somewhat dangerous due to several holes in the party (shared) wall between 1632 and 1634 N Gilmor St. Someone of ill-repute broke into 1632 while it was inhabitable and ripped the brick out to gain access to the copper pipe, which was then stolen and sold for cash. As a result everyone wore a hard hat at all times and care was made not to stress the remaining brick and cause a collapse.

Here are two views of the holes in the brick party wall that exposed the plumbing. Sandtown will have professional brick layers fill in this structure to ensure it is sound prior to us returning for our next work day.



Here are some pics of the front and back of 1632 N Gilmor:



1630 N Gilmor was in fairly good shape and did not receive a whole lot of attention during our two day effort. However, the first floor had a wall and hardwood floor ripped out to get all of the first floor joists exposed. Since this house did not suffer any termite damage, the plan is to leave these joists in place and lay subfloor on top of them.





Thanks to Saturdays crew for posing for a picture:

July 9th, 2011

Work continued on stripping both 1630 and 1632 North Gilmor homes down to the bare bones. Stairs were removed from 1630 and all unnecessary framing was removed from both houses. The task of removing the old subfloor was also started in both homes, and a temporary support wall was built to support the roof structure along the wall shared between the houses.

Here the crew removed some framing:

A view of top floor of 1632 after removing the framing and subfloor.

The crew works to remove the stairs from 1632:

A temporary support wall under construction:

A little artistic view through the floor joists of 1630.

A New Challenge and Summer Build Week

For those of you who have followed this blog over the last several years, you know that our dedicated group of volunteers have now completed two homes in West Baltimore that were both built and sponsored by Northrop Grumman and its employees. It is with much joy that Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems sponsored another $50K for another project with Sandtown Habitat for Humanity. This time around though, we have been asked to build two homes for the price of one. Due to our continual relationship with Sandtown, and our commitment to getting the job done, we will be tackling two homes next door to each other at 1630 and 1632 North Gilmor St. The goal is to finish both within one years time, which is certainly a challenge, but already Northrop Grumman folk are stepping up.

The houses we are sponsoring were previously fixed up by resident home owners, so that unlike some of our other projects some of the framing in the homes is newer than the late 1800's early 1900's. We starting the task of separating / demolishing the old from the new during Sandtown's 20th Annual Summer Build Week. During the week hundreds of volunteers come to volunteer during the week, and Habitat kicked off its efforts to rebuild a whole block of homes along 1600 N Gilmor, of which two of these houses will be built by us. We also had the priviledge of having Ted Imes come speak to the crowd and share the good news of our $50K sponsorship donation.

During the week our focus was on removing the left behinds of the previous tenants as well as drywall, subfloor, and unusable framing. It was pretty dusty and dirty work during a fairly hot summer week, but it was no where near as hot as last year at least.

Here is what 1630 looked like before we got started:

Here is what 1632 looked like before we got started:

By the end of Summer Build Week both houses were mostly gutted to their original framing, filling up quite a few dumpsters as this process was in full swing along the whole block of houses being redone.

House Dedication

Despite the snow flurries predicted for late in the evening, our Dedication ceremony went off without a hitch on Saturday March 26th. The snow reminded us of our last ceremony plans, where more than a foot of snow fell on our planned dedication day for our house at 1606 Gilmor St. A few minor additions were made to the house Saturday morning including a few paint touch-ups, new locks and door handles for the external doors, and cleaning up the newly installed carpets. But our small crew got those tasks completed by 11:30 am, with plenty of time until the noon ceremony began.

Many northrop volunteers attended the ceremony as well as Tonya, her daughter Ashley, and her grandkids Darius (5), and Morgan (3). Other members of her family, New Song Urban Ministries and Habitat volunteers from other houses were also in attendance.

The dedication ceremony is a Habitat tradition where the house is handed over to its family. It includes singing songs, and speeches from the folk who help make the process possible. Teri Marconi, Northrop Grumman Electronic System's Vice President of Marketing spoke on behalf of Northrop, while Kurt, Andrew, and I got to give a small thank you speech to everyone who helped build the house. Tonya was very emotional and very proud to receive her beautiful home for her and her family.

Here she is receiving the ceremonial key from us.


She thanked Northrop Grumman for their sponsorship and all the employees, friends, and family who volunteered as well as Danny and Bo who were the Habitat staff leads on the house. She presented us with a plaque as well which we will attempt to hang in the display case near the Central Cafeteria at the BWI campus.

Her Tonya hands a plaque to Bo (white shirt) and Danny (plaid) while Darius, Morgan, and Ashley watch from the house steps.


After the ceremony, everyone was invited into the house to see the finished product. It got quite a bit cramped inside but that's how these things go. Northrop also furnished a lovely cake and cookout supplies so that we could provide fresh cooked burgers and hotdogs to those in attendence to allow Tonya to meet more of her neighbors and volunteers that work with Habitat.

It was a great time filled with good people, good food, good conversation, and above all lots of hope for the future. We hope to see you at the next project we take on with Sandtown, no matter what form that may be.

Again, many thanks to Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems for donating the $50,000 it takes to spnsor a Sandtown Habitat house, to Sandtown for working with us, especially Danny and Bo who worked along side of us for this endevour and of course to all the Northrop employees who donated their time. We had over 200 volunteers from multiple Northrop sectors donate over 2500 hours to this project. I especially want to thank the following volunteers who put in 30 hours or more to the cause:
Rebecca Bodgan
Craig Cambias
Richard Diz
David Fine
Hirsh Goldberg
Jean Hakansson
Urban Hakansson
Randy Kuning
Michael Lean
Michael Lewis
Nina Lively
Arjun Majumdar
Anthony Rossi
Dave Segundo



Here are a few more pictures from the days events:
The front of the house with ribbon and ballons:



The ribbon cutting portion of the ceremony:



Danny helps us cook up some tasty burgers. We had beef, turkey, and veggie burgers along with lots of fixings, alas the ketchup did not survive the onslaught of hungry attendees.

The deck from the third floor back bedroom as cooking and conversation continued.


A finished bathroom:

Some Bedroom and Hallway shots:








The top of the third floor stairs with exposed brick wall:


And as a reminder of shear magnitude of this wonderful effort, a before and after shot, taken from the back alley behind the house.
Before:

And After: