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.
