Dedication

Dedication, September 22, 2012

Well, we did it.  Five houses in ten days!

There's a lot of pictures here. It was a glorious day and I just couldn't edit the pictures down.

Enjoy!

 A look down the street at the build site.

The kitchen - finally finished!

 Gail and Aloha!

As part of the blessing, a helicopter dropped flowers on the new houses.

In the spirit of Extreme Home Makeover -- MOVE THAT BUS!
 

Watch the video of the actually house blessing!

 Aloha and her family -- Her daughter, son-in-law, and their four kids.

Aloha receives the deed to her house!

The folks that built Aloha's house got together and purchased some things to help her get started.  In one of the baskets are laundry products, and in the other basket are items for the master bathroom.

Curt and Gail presented Aloha and her family with a new sewing machine.  Aloha and her granddaughter expressed an interest in sewing again.  So, we helped her get started!
 

JD and Debbie presented the kids with new bicycles!

 JD and Debbie.

After the dedication, we had lunch and got together one last time

Five houses is ten days -- crazy?  Maybe. But all it really took was faith -- and a lot of hard work!
Overall there were over 1000 volunteers.  Some of them spend a day, others (like us) were there for the complete build.

We had high-school kids on Saturday -- one group of them can from about 50 miles north.  We had local companies announce they were closing the company for the day so that everyone could come out and work.  Many of the local restaurant brought lunch for us.

That's it for this year. Don't know where we will be next year, but I am sure it will be another rewarding experience!

Build Day 8

Build Day 8, September 21, 2012

The theme for the day was "finish the house".  There were no other goals for today.  So, that's what we did!  Again, lot of finish work today.

 Trenching (by hand) for the irrigation system for the front lawn.

Glen (our house lead) working on the kitchen cabinets.  A "professional" spent three days and this is all the farther he got.  Glen and I finished up the cabinets, including the counter tops, in a couple of hours.

Grass is going in!

A little piece of art for the front of Aloha's house.

Here is the kitchen complete and carpets laid.

He is a picture of the Blitz Home Builders for house #39.  Want to learn more about our group?  Go to blitzhomebuilders.org  -- maybe even join us on a build in the future!

Some of our new friends -- Rick and Paula from New York.

So our build is coming to an end.  Tomorrow is the dedication.

Build Day 7

Build Day 7, September 20, 2012

Lots, and lots, (and LOTS) of little stuff today.  Today was all about all of those little things that take so much time to complete!  Installing cabinets, door casings, base-board molding, closet shelves, finish painting, and one last touch-up of the exterior paint.

The electrician was also in today, installing outlets, switches, and lights.

All of this work takes much longer than you would think.  Unlike the framing -- that is covered up -- all of this trim work is what people will see, so it has to look good and be right.

 Carla touching up paint on the front of the house.

 Our electrician!

Installing door casing.

Painting one of the bedrooms.  Two of the bedrooms got accent walls!

Installing cabinets.  This took all day! (and they still are not done).

The outside of our house at the end of the day.

Tomorrow is everything that we didn't complete today. The plumbers come in tomorrow to install all of the finish plumbing.  We will finish touching up the paint on the inside, installing things like door knobs, towel bars, and closet rods.  The carpet layers should come in the morning.  Also the sod is being delivered in the morning -- looks like we get to do some landscaping!  

People of Walmart?  Nope.  We ran into Hope and Cody after finishing for the day, in Walmart of all places.  They helped out again today on our build!  Thanks for coming out!  We hope to see you on one of our future builds.

Build Day 6

Build Day 6, September 19, 2012

Today was all about paint.  Paint, paint, and more paint.  Everything got painted today.
Lots of pictures in today's post.

 Painting started on the outside of the house.  We had people painting on all four sides and in the carport at the same time!

More painting.

Gail and our home owner Aloha.

Still more exterior painting!

A couple of the locals came out to help up paint today!

Everyone paints on painting day!

Here is Aloha with our house leader Glen.  It was Glen's birthday today!

Curt and Gail on site.

Everything gets a coat (or two) of primer and then a couple of coats of paint.  Here one of the volunteers is painting the closet shelves.

This is Hope and Cory.  They are from Virginia and are staying on the island for several weeks.  They heard about the build from an article in the local paper and drove almost 2 hours to help us today.  They spent all day priming and painting trim!  Our thanks go out to them and those like them for spending a day of their vacation to help with the build!

 As you may have noticed, all of the pictures have been from the outside of the house.  That's because the "trades" that were putting on the wall texture didn't get to our house until after lunch.  They were supposed to have finished last night.  So we didn't get into the house until late in the afternoon.  To try to keep on schedule, the interior got sprayed! -- Usually in a Habitat build, the interior of the house is painted by brush and roller.  Easy for the volunteers to do!  But since we were behind schedule, out came the sprayer.
 

Here are a couple pictures of our house at the end of the day.  The exterior is completely painted and the interior has a coat of primer and a coat of paint.  We will finish painting in the morning.  Those boxes in the carport are the kitchen and bathroom cabinets.  Those will get installed tomorrow as well.

The build is wrapping up.  Only two days to go!

Build Day 5

Build Day 5, Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Today was a fairly light day.  We couldn't do anything on the inside of the house until the "mudders and tapers" were done -- and they took all day!  So Tuesday was spent finishing the outside of the house.  Finish installing the trim, caulking, and priming.

Aloha and her son-in-law.

Installing trim over the carport. 

One of the "mudders and tapers" working inside of the house.

 A couple of the volunteers caulking the trim. (Carla on the left and Debbie on the right).

Here's what the house looked at the end of the day.  All ready for exterior paint!

Build Day 4

Build Day 4, Monday, September 17, 2012
The goal for Monday is to have the insulation and drywall installed.  It was going to be a very long day!

 We have two groups of people -- the first was working from the back to the front, installing the insulation in the walls.  The second was working from the front to the back installing insulation in the ceiling.  That's me (Curt), installing insulation in the ceiling.

There's only some much room inside of the house,  While we were installing the insulation, others were installing the windows and the exterior trim.

Here is Aloha and her grandchildren sitting on the wall behind their house.  The grandchildren were not allowed on the work site during the day.

At 2:30 PM we started hanging drywall. The ceiling is done first.  Here I am putting the first piece of drywall in place.

 Here is the interior of the house with the drywall just about complete. We finished drywalling the house in just over 3 1/2 hours!  That made for a long day.

However, here is the sunset at the end of the day!  It made for a great finish to the day!