Kayla (AmeriCorps member assisting Lynne for the summer) delivered Bella Italia lunch today and took a few pictures while she was there. She reported that the shed walls are underway and siding is progressing outside while painting is going on inside.
Shed walls underway
John the painter extraordinaire from St. Paul Lutheran in A2
Johnson Controls employee with her son hanging siding
Adan from St. Paul heading up the scaffolding
Lunchtime
Sidewalk repairs to house next door
Egress window well built
Egress window opening
Mark putting on his stilts
Mark cutting in on stilts
Don from Johnson Controls cutting in
Kitchen cabinets delivered
Siding & soffit at rear done
Another great day on Thursday, July 16. The temperature was in the 70’s and all tasks of major importance got done. The interior of the house was cleaned in the morning then primed top to bottom. The ceilings all got painted except in the hall where some drywall stuff was still going on around the attic access opening. The kitchen walls were also painted and just in time because the kitchen cabinets got delivered Thursday as well and they are now stacked in the corner of the kitchen where painting is finished. This morning (Friday) the second cut-in coat was going on. I think the wall painting crew of 2-3 lead by professional painter and long-time volunteer John from St. Paul in Ann Arbor was going to follow the cut-in crew from room to room and they will finish the house today no problem. See the picture of Mark Frisinger (a regular volunteer with us this year on Thrivent) on stilts this morning (Friday) and Don from Johnson Controls cutting in the lower level below him.
Other priority tasks on Thursday were digging the holes for the back/side porch footings, the inspector will stop in and pass those early Friday then the cardboard tubes that you fill with concrete to make your footings (I think that’s how it works and I forget what they are called) will be set. I’ll have to ask Bill if using these tubes means posts will go right on top of those or if a 3′x3′ pad will still have to be poured. I’m a little confused about how this is being done, but we are all learning a lot about new a different ways to do things.
But, the biggest thing that got done which required a lot of digging with shovels was to get that egress window well area dug out and the well itself built. This is necessary before the window can go in, but more importantly this was holding us up from proceeding with the gas line connection so Bill will now put in that request. We hope it doesn’t take 5-6 weeks, but it may. There is no way to know with the utility companies.
Bella Italia in Ann Arbor is providing pizza lunch for 20 today and I don’t think there are going to be quite that many there so folks are going to eat big! Again, we say thanks to Bella Italia for their generosity. Many thanks also to workers from our sponsoring churches and also to the first of many Johnson Controls employees that will be working on Habitat homes in our community in the coming weeks.
Sidenote: I am attaching a picture of Geoff from King of Kings, as well as Sean Conn and George Krieck who are helping out regularly this year. They are smashing out the front concrete sidewalk leading up to the house next door (a Thrivent Build home from a prior year.) This home has had the sidewalk buckle or been pushed up and is not at all level. Bill promised the homeowner we would repair it while we were building the new house this year so we are getting ready for that to be formed and poured.
