Help Us Build Our House!

A few people have asked for more information about the Blitz build August 1-5 and how they can help. I wanted to post the information so everyone can know and come help if they can.

Blitz Build Location: Libby Village Way, Oceanside CA
                      http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=ll
Parking is off site, across North River Road in the auction lot adjacent to the storage place. You can get there from Calle Montecito. Wednesday, the parking will be different as the auctions take place on Wednesdays. I can give more details about that to you personally if you plan to come on Wednesday.

Volunteer Hours: 6am-6pm Monday - Thursday
                            6am-2pm Friday.
On Friday at 2pm there will be a house dedication ceremony.

Jobs to do: Although a lot of construction will be going on this week, we cannot guarantee that you will        
get to actually build. There are lots of other kinds of jobs to help with that keep the construction site going 24 hours for that 5 day period. Habitat of Humanity will be providing 3 meals a day and a snack for all the workers, so food service help will be needed. There will also be clean-up and organizational jobs around the jobsite just to keep things running smoothly. There are two other houses besides ours being completed during the blitz, so there may be construction type jobs available on those houses as well. No matter what job you get assigned, if you are there working for us, we'll get credit.

Important Note: If you'd like to help, please contact Andrew or me so that we can tell the superintendent how many to expect each day. We cannot have people just dropping by. There is a risk waiver and a sign in sheet that all volunteers have to sign as well.

Thank you for all your support. We are so blessed that the Lord is providing in this way for us. We are blown away by how He has gone before us and hand selected so many details. He chose the perfect floor plan for us, the perfect lot number and I know, the perfect neighbors. We have no doubt that he has also hand selected each friend that will come to help us as well. We hope to see lots of you there next week!

Friday!! Blitz Week is only 3 days away!!

We had an early morning today, starting off with a filling, healthy breakfast of oatmeal and smoothies.

Bobbie always tries to get my cup and eat it, silly girl!

Today's tasks included more caulking. The house we worked on today is close to being done. It will be finished next week during the Blitz. Today we finished caulking the exterior and preped it for painting.







 The caulking today was a lot scarier because we needed to be high up on the scaffolding to reach the second story.  Check out how high up I was when I took this picture. Can you see the wheelbarrow on the ground behind my brother...and there was another level higher than that!                                                              

Andrew got to help the IT guy set up the camera that will be documenting the whole build. He was splicing wires when I found him for this picture.









At the end of the work day, (lunchtime for us because Andrew had to work this afternoon) we had completed 63 sweat equity hours. Thanks again to my brother for working 3 hours today with us! We are so excited to go into next week with 63 hours under our belt. Starting on Monday, we will be getting DOUBLE HOURS! Even if our friends and family work, we get double credit for them too, so PLEASE come help us!! Andrew is taking the week off of work and plans to work 12 hour days at the jobsite and I'm planning on working every morning. We hope to get 150 hours done between us next week and if we have enough friends and family come, we can reach our maximum friends and family hours of 125 which will being us well over half of our 500 hours!!


Our house is getting pre-framed. The framing is being done today and tomorrow so on Monday morning they'll start off by raising the walls! We can't wait to see it!!!

Our house is getting framed!

Week 2 --- clean-up and set-up for the Blitz

Oh yeah, I got to use a power tool!

The cable protector we put together

Yesterday (Tuesday) I worked on the job site for a little over 3 hours. I was hoping to do some painting, but I was put on clean-up duty. First, I was put on a team with another future homeowner, Nicole...she'll be living two doors down from us with her husband and three kids that she homeschools. On our team was also Nicole's friend Erica and Andrew for an hour. He had to go to work, but wanted to put in an hour of sweat equity before going to work. We had to lay out some cable protectors across the street so all the trucks could safely drive over the power cords and cables. That happens to be harder than it looks.....those pieces are really heavy and they DO NOT fit together like puzzle pieces....we were jumping on them to get them to fit....but we successfully laid two rows of them.

Look at my man's muscles!

After that, we picked up some brooms and went to work sweeping out the gutters and moving debris. There has been a lot of accumulated sawdust, dirt, leaves and dust settling into crevasses and corners that needed to be cleaned out. We had to move a bunch of wet sand bags which unearthed a lot of black widow spiders too....no one got bit, but it was a little scary.

Today, Andrew and I worked together for the morning. We started by walking the neighborhoods on either side of our new street leaving courtesy notices about all the construction that will be going on next week during the Blitz. There will be construction going on 24 hours for 5 days, although they will be doing quiet activities between 10pm and 7am. The notice just let the neighbors know what to expect.

When we finished with that, we were given the task of figuring out how to mount a camera to the top of one of the storage sheds so that they can film the progress of the Blitz week. Andrew figured out that we should mount the camera to a saw horse and secure the saw horse to the top of the storage shed in front of our soon-to-be house. 

It was a little scary climbing a ladder that high. Andrew climbed it carrying the very heavy saw horse....crazy! But now its all set up and Habitat will be filming the whole thing....maybe we'll get to see a timelaps video of the progress once its all done!

This is our foundation and electrical box.....in only a few short days, it will be our house! We took this picture from on top of the storage shed that the video camera will be mounted to.....looks like its the perfect spot to watch our house go up!

Our story begins

In January of this year, just weeks after our firstborn baby girl was born, Andrew and I learned of an organization that helped low income families become first-time home buyers.
After a few months of filling out our application, a home interview and lots of email correspondence, we found out we were chosen and the house we would be getting was going to be built in a Blitz. A professional builder will be coming in August 1-5 and building our entire house in 5 days.
Our home will be in a community in Oceanside called Libby Lake Village. There are 20 homes that Habitat for Humanity will build (15 are already completed) on a private cul-de-sac with a common play area at the end of the cul-de-sac. We are one of the final 5 families chosen for the community.
As part of the deal, Andrew and I have to work 500 hours, what they call Sweat Equity Hours, on the job site or for other Habitat events. However, we are allowed to have 25% of our hours completed by friends and family. Since our house will be built so fast, we don't know how much of that we will get to work on, but Andrew very much wants to put his own hands to the job, so we are hoping they will let him help. We will be putting most of our efforts into the other homes in the final phase that Habitat is building with volunteers. So far we've worked 3 days and accumulated 41.5 hours (thanks to my dad and brother volunteering yesterday).


The first day of work, last Saturday, Andrew and I worked for about 3 or 4 hours and built this...
the framing around those two drain pipes at the roofline. We had no idea what we were doing....hence the reason it took 3-4 hours! This is the house next door to ours.

The second day of work, last Friday, I work for 3 hours helping a volunteer group install insulation in the same house. I learned about the two types of insulation, R-13 and R-30 (one is for walls and the other for ceilings) and I learned how itchy fiberglass is. I helped by cutting the pieces to fit.

Yesterday, the third day of work, Andrew and I worked the whole 7 hour day, with my dad and my brother. When we got there, we started by finishing the insulation. The hardest parts were left, the ceilings and the stairwell. Andrew was up on a ladder on the staircase putting the insulation in the walls. My dad and brother were putting the insulation in the ceiling in the back of the bottom story. That took all of the morning.










When it was time for lunch, the insulation was nearly done. When we came back from lunch, Andrew and I started on caulking the siding. My brother joined us when his allergies had gotten the best of him inside the house.
                                   

At the end of the day, we had racked up 28.5 hours bringing our total up to 41.5. Here's a picture of all of the volunteers from yesterday, including another selected family for the project!

If you follow my blog, you'll see in the weeks and months to come, our progress on our Sweat Equity hours, including the building of our own home. I hope to show lots of pictures of the blitz build so you can all see the process and progress!