Dedication is approaching

Dear followers, The dedication date is just around the corner on April 20th, and the atmosphere is crackling with excitement. We hope you can come join us at noon, as we dedicate 1630 and 1632 N Gilmor along with several other houses. This Saturday was the second to last planned work day on the houses, and a lot of jobs were on the to do list. A team of experts were there to assist, and thankfully, we got a lot of work done, including lots of painting, as the dry wall crew touched up a lot of their work, causing lots of new bare spots that needed painting, cutting banisters, trimming the back doors, toe kicks for the kitchen cabinets, and so forth. But there are quite a lot of tasks to still be completed so hopefully we will get everything done by the 20th. Please come out and support the dedication and / or come volunteer on these houses one last time. Here are some snapshots of the new kitchen in 1632 and the dining room shelves too.

March 2nd, 2013

Work continues on the houses as the dedication approaches. We had some snow flakes greet us throughout the day, but also a decent amount of sunshine, so working outside wasn't too brutal as we prepped a lot of the window sills for 1632 for install. Gary and the Habitat team installed the kitchen cabinets in 1630 over the course of the week, and continue to push the houses along as well. And yet there is still much to do from caulking, and painting to staining and installing small things like shelves in the pantries, mirrors and towel racks in the bathrooms, and tending to the little details. The future homeowners from 1626 N Gilmor were in attendance and helped cut shelving for the closets in our houses. We learned that Brittany is expecting a baby as well, so the Sandtown community will be growing soon. Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to snap any photos but will try to do so next week. Or you could come down and see for yourself. Just visit our signup link to join us.

Feb 16th, 2013

Saturday was an extremely productive day. Kurt wrangled up a group of about 25 from his plant in Sykesville, MD. The crew came ready to go, and quickly mastered many tasks. 1632 N Gilmor got a fresh coat of egg shell paint (Habitat's favorite color), while 1630 got touch ups where needed. All the window sills got measured and half of them cut out and ready to go. We got another round of staining in on various pieces such as stair and shelf caps, and installed several window sills that were previously stained and sealed with polyurethane. Trim to hide the sill seams was also installed on these sills. Everyone was in good spirits despite a little chill in the air, and both houses now are one step closer to being completed. The Sandtown staff told us that a home owner has been chosen for 1632 N Gilmor so we are very excited to meet them. We are now in the process of determining a new dedication date, where we can guarantee that both houses will be completely finished and ready to welcome their new homeowners and family. Thank you to all who have volunteered with us, and we hope to see you in the next few weeks as we strive to finish and, of course, at the dedication ceremony.

Dedication Approaches

It has been a while since we posted on the status of the Northrop Grumman sponsored houses with Sandtown Habitat for Humanity. for that I apologize, but work has continued steady since our last post in late October. some days have been quite nice, while others a bit cold like this past Saturday. But volunteer turnout has been steady and even growing, and for that we thank you. We recently migrated our volunteer tool to the web, namely SignUpGenius that has made managing things a little easier, and a recent ES ad campaign in the FYI has also helped to let people know we need help putting the finishing touches like spackle, caulk, and paint in the house to make the house into a finished product, a.k.a an actual home for a deserving family. Unlike many other years, this set of houses at 1630 and 1632 N Gilmor has seen turn over on who will be acquiring the houses once they are complete. Normally, the home owner is known well in advance and gets the chance to work along us. This shows them what is really behind the drywall, cabinets, sinks, etc. and also allows us volunteers to get to know the main homeowner and their family well before the dedication date. 1630 and 1632 have had a few home owners each that for one reason or another could not complete the Sandtown Habitat program and therefore be eligible to purchase the house, but as it stands right now, Danny is set to inherit 1630, but no one has been choosen to inherit 1632. As such we have been more focused in recent weeks to finish 1630 and only working on 1632 on the side. Jobs performed since late October include installing a few more doors, cutting and installing trim and baseboard, cutting custom window sills and stair caps, installing closet shelves, painting, caulking, cleaning out the basement, filling in a few holes in the basement with cement, and installing luan plywood over the subfloor in areas where linoleum will be installed. Work continues in these areas and more (bathroom vanity install, kitchen cabinet install, dining room custom shelves, etc.) in future. So please come down and help us out. Here are some photos from Jan 12th of the crew performing various tasks: Kurt posing by a door after installing it:

James posing as well:

Measuring and fixing custom window sills:

Mike and Rob take a quick breather outside.

Gary and Danny search for the right tools for us in the Habitat truck.

Oct. 27th 2012

Hurricane Sandy is rolling into Baltimore and many many other cities across the eastern seaboard today and tomorrow. But Saturday was a gorgeous day full of sunshine and moderate weather. A great day to give a little back to the community. Both our houses have drywall installed now and so we have been focused on turning the shell of the houses into livable space that makes a house a home. Baseboard trim, coats of primer and paint, and doors and door frames have been our focus the last two working Saturdays. This week we tackled some of the larger double closet doors, which is at least a two man task. As a crew of engineers though, there were many ideas on how to best install the doors efficiently and effectively. Doors need to be level and plumb and also high enough above the floor so that carpet doesn't impede the door. This is complicated by potential issues such as the framing isn't wide enough, the walls are slanted, or the floor is slanted. So it takes a little effort, but once a door is installed correctly it should work perfectly over its lifetime. There is plenty more to be done so please come and join us in two Saturdays. Here is a photo of a double closet door on the second floor of 1632 N Gilmor.

Sept. 14th and 15th

So the summer is unofficially over, and the weather is great. As a result, lots of folk are very interested in coming out to our Northrop Grumman sponsored Habitat houses and volunteering. We had a group of 17 from our purchasing group volunteer on Friday, and had a large crew from SMT engineering come on Saturday to help out. 1630 N Gilmor had its drywall complete so the Friday crew was able to apply the first coat of paint while 1632 still needed some drywall touches, but the Friday crew was able to clean up the drywall scraps. On Saturday, the crew focused hard on laying baseboard and trim and installed a few doors on 1630. Some window sills were cut and some other small details were worked out. So now the houses are starting to feel like homes in that they don't look like bare studs. There is paint, and trim, and electrical boxes (soon to have switches and outlets). Many thanks to the crews for their hard word. Have are some photos from the end of the day Saturday: View from the family room of 1630 N Gilmor:

View of 2nd floor back bedroom:

View of some of the crew from the end of the day:

6/25 - 6/29 Summer Build Week

It was yet another hot Summer Build Week at Sandtown Habitat. This was the 21rst annual summer build week at the Sandtown chapter, which is one reason this small chapter has completed over 305 homes to date since starting in 1989. And, this was probably the 21rst year the temperatures hit 90's or above (100 on Friday). I think Mother Nature likes watching so many people sweat it out as they work hard as a team to help those in need. Both our houses were nearly ready for drywall prior to the beginning of Build Week. But a lot must happen before the professional drywall hangers and drywall finishers (taping, spackling, sanding) enter the house. All the plumbing, Heating Venting and Air Conditioning (HVAC) and electrical must first be installed. A home inspection must occur and the house must get a thumbs up, and our crew also gets the tasks of finishing / fixing all the little mistakes that would make the drywall task difficult. So Build Week was a hard working week for all the volunteers that showed up to work on 1630 and 1632 North Gilmor St. At the end of the week, there were a few noticeable changes in the houses, a kitchen pantry here, dinning room nooks there, a new bathroom frame there. But many of the changes were smaller but needed to make edges flush for drywall, to box in ductwork or conceal water pipes. The teams also pitched in to paint an other house to prepare the house for a home dedication ceremony and made a few saw horses for public safety. We also got great news Wednesday morning during the morning announcements, that Northrop Grumman has dedicated another $40,000 for the cause, which will sponsor a new house once we finish and dedicate these current houses. Melissa Sandlin made the announcement on behalf of the Electronic Systems Community Outreach committe and has been a long time volunteer for us and for several other efforts. Here is a photo of a sweaty Wednesday crew:

4/13/2012 and 4/14/2012

It was a beautiful day to be working outside or in the house shells with all the windows open. That's right we got windows on both 1630 and 1632 N Gilmor St. We can use them to keep up nesting pigeons and the summer heat when it arrives. All the stairs are also in place thanks to teams working on the houses Friday and Saturday. On Friday a team build of Steve McCoy group worked during their day off while we had a normal Saturday build the following day as well. Framing the walls for the stairs will be a small challenge, as the staff wants to have angled 1/2 walls near each of the staircase platforms to make it easier to move furniture up and down the stairs. Certainly this is an important feature when the home owners get to move in. A lot of other loose ends were tied up by the teams as we get ready to do the interior wall framing. It won't be too long now until we can think about drywall and the final fixings. Keep an eye out for more volunteer days in the future as NGC's employee resource groups also look to get involved.

View from across the street, showing the windows installed, (our houses have the plain white doors).


Here the team passes materials up the stairs for work on upper floors.


Strengthening the roof rafters by doubling up the roof joists.

3/17/2012 St. Patricks Day

This past saturday was my first time back to our houses since December. It was great to see the progress that had been made on both houses. Kurt and Andrew along with the volunteers and habitat staff did a great job making significant progress including finishing the third floor subfloor on each house and getting the stair cases installed. Here are some photos from 1630.

First floor stairs:


Second floor stairs:


Saw shop on the second floor:


Blue board along 2nd floor back wall:



We had a good crew today of regulars so that even though we only had 9 people, we split up in teams of three and worked on both houses framing the exterior walls between the 3rd floor and the roof. We certainly missed having more people though as we can always use help even if volunteers don't have experience. Typically in past houses we would build a rectangular walls with a triangular wall on top of it to meet the slanted roof. This time however we built trapezoidal walls where the top of the wall matches the slant of roof. In this way there isn't a weak point along the wall and so the wall can help support the weight of the roof.

We also got word that Sandtown Millworks will be using many of the old joists we removed and saved from 1630 and 1632 to build furniture for the Baltimore community. Not only is the furniture beautiful but it keeps this thick lumber out of the landfill. Acquiring lumber of more than 2 inches think and 16 feet long would be quite an impossibility today. Please check out their website or Facebook page to see how they convert 100 year old stressed lumber into unique furniture pieces.

Thank you to everyone who gave up part of their St Patricks Day to participate. We appreciate our crew of regulars but have plenty of room and people willing to mentor new volunteers so please consider joining us.

Here is a pic of the trapezoidal walls being added to the third floor.


Here is most of the crew plus a few Habitat staffers that supported our St. Patty's Day workday.

1/21/12 A Cold Day in January

Kurt will be updating soon!

1/7/12 First Volunteer Day of the New Year

Kurt will be updating soon!

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.