Habitat House

Yesterday I had the wonderful opportunity to spend several hours working at the Habitat for Humanity house in our town.  My sis (you all know her as Bambi) is on the board.  

We started at 8:00 and I was given the job of installing hurricane tie-downs onto the rafters.  Now, I'm guessing Otin knows what a hurricane tie-down is, but I had no idea.  It's a piece of metal that is attached to the rafter and then to the outside wall.  That way, if a big wind comes along and tries to take off the roof, the whole house will be taken instead!

Sounds easy enough, right?  But actually, those things were a booger to install.  Attaching them to the wall, was no problem.  It was attaching them to the rafter, through that metal plate thing you see, using a special nail that was thicker than the "8 penny" nails I used to attach it to the wall.  So it was kind of slow going and I got a blood blister where I hit my finger with the hammer (see Bambi's for a visual, mine popped and all the cool red stuff oozed out before I could get a picture of it). (But isn't that cute we both got blood blisters).

My next job was sealing windows.  It was a 2-person job so I got Bambi to do it with me.  It was a straight forward job.

What'd I learn during my Habitat Day?

• Hold the nail with a pair of pliers.  That way you can hit it hard without worrying about your finger.
• What hurricane tie-downs are and how to install them.
• That building a house is fun.
• That it's a small world - one of the guys in charge is a really good friend of our former neighbors.  It was our former neighbors who recommended a real-estate agent when we sold our house and that agent is the wife of the guy who was in charge.
• That Habitat for Humanity used to get a lot of stuff donated but the big stores that used to donate won't even give them contractor's prices anymore.
• That people of all skill levels can make a difference helping someone into a decent home.
• That it feels good to work on a Habitat house.