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Saturday, January 12, 2008

Habitat for Humanity Women Build

Today a team of eight from my moms group participated in Habitat for Humanity Women Build. The idea behind it is having houses built by teams of women (although men may also participate.) I thought I knew what I was in for. After all, I spent a week doing Habitat in college, and I have fond clear memories of spackling walls, hanging installation, and helping to build a porch. In fact I had even helped with the wiring.

My day started out at 5 am. I was psyched because I got to sleep in an additional ten minutes. I was able to take my time this morning, eat a little breakfast, and even check my email before I left. About 5 minutes into my trip to meet my carpool in a local Walmart parking lot, I realized that I had left my cat bed sweatshirt in the computer room at home. Since I figured that the heating situation in a partially built house would be poor at best, I turned around to retrieve it from its apparent resting spot on the floor of the computer room. Since, I almost never wear this particular sweatshirt, I wouldn't be too upset if it got ruined. (The cats might feel differently.)

The carpool quickly assembled and, after a stop at Dunkin Donuts, where the world's slowest teenaged workers appeared to find the idea of giving change to be a novel concept, we headed out out to Providence, RI. We had a brief introduction, and then we split into two groups of four.

Our group was assigned to hang drywall. I was a little nervous about it, but things initially went well. We just had to cut basically standard rectangular pieces. The only problem was my sweatshirt. I knew it was used extensively by the cats. I had not realized that a large golden retriever in desperate need of a bath had also been using it. As a result, I felt enveloped by the scent of dirty dog. While others may have been shielding their eyes from debris and their mouths from dust, I spent a lot of time shielding my nose from the smell of my own sweatshirt and hoping that everyone around me either was doing the same or had a cold. I'm such a nice person.

The drywall continued to go well, although things became less rectangular. I was particularly pleased with a tiny triangle that we cut out that perfectly filled a gap in the wall. Then we went to work hanging drywall over the studs on either side of two staircases. My grand plan had been to completely avoid any staircases, much less two of them. Unfortunately, two women in our group (other than me) were asked to work on another part of the house. That left me and a friend whom I will call Jane, as in Jane Austin since she's an avid reader, to handle all the drywall that required tricky angles. The list of items that we were required to bring today did not include a Masters in Engineering. Further, while math and science are normally my strengths, there is one big glaring exception to that: geometry. Guess what branch of math is a prerequisite to putting up drywall on a staircase...geometry. At least in my opinion. And no, we weren't asked to bring a degree in Math today either.

The first side of the staircase did appeared to go well. I would like to claim that was because of my brilliant insight, but the truth is that Jane totally took control of the situation, much to my relief. In fact, I would have had more luck assembling a jet airplane in the backyard. The area was measured, and the drywall was cut. Then we put it up to make sure it fit. It did not.

We started to panic. I could still smell the dog funk on me even though my sweatshirt was in another part of the house. The woman in charge suggested that we try the piece on the upstairs side of the banister. It didn't fit there either. The big piece of cut drywall appeared to be wasted. Well, maybe not totally wasted, as we could cut it up and use smaller pieces, but the beauty of one large perfectly cut piece was lost. Or so we thought. Then we realized we had cut it right in the first place; it was just backwards. Given that I was involved, I was surprised that it was even the right shape.

Vowing not to make that mistake again, we then did the other side of the first staircase. It was fine. I felt as proud as when I finished organic chemistry. Well, maybe almost as proud. My only regret was that I didn't have a camera to take a picture for my blog. Yeah right. Like I was thinking about photography. I just thought of the picture now. The point is I really felt a sense of accomplishment. We finished drywalling both sides of the first staircase. It did involve cutting many smaller pieces of drywall and using the Rasper tool on excess drywall. We got a lot of positive feedback.

I felt like we were on a roll, and I was looking forward to finishing the second staircase and being done with angles. We measured the final area that we needed to cover, took the last big piece of drywall, and double checked our measurements. I assured Jane that we wouldn't mess up. Everything would be fine. I had my mental Pythagoras hat, glasses and beard. Maybe not the beard. Except that what we really needed was Pythagoras himself. This time the piece really was backwards. Our piece would have to be cut into smaller pieces to be used.

I really enjoyed the experience of Habitat and yes even the drywalling! It was great to be able to help someone out and to be able to see the difference that our groups and others made. We got to meet the woman who would be living in the house. I really liked the concept of Women Build. It was really fun, and I would like to do it again.

Despite the mistakes, I was really pleased with what we accomplished. We covered both sides of the first staircase and the wall behind it. We also finished the walls at right angles to the back walls (I had to be able to take at least a little geometry away with me) and a good part of the area on one side of the second staircase. Everything that we did screw in looked good and fit well. Even better, now I think I really know how to cut sheet rock for the area next to a staircase. In fact, I almost feel like running out to Home Depot right now and grabbing some dry wall so I can seal up our banisters. Next time I'll know to immediately run to the outhouse if assigned drywall and to sneak in and join another group instead what I'm doing.

Picture of Pythagoras


A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Smell any work clothes that you may plan to wear before leaving the house.

Labels: , ,

posted by Alex Elliot @ 8:48 PM   6 comments
6 Comments:

  • At 1/13/2008 8:17 AM, Blogger Whirlwind said…

    We have a few pieces of drywall left to be hung. Your more than welcome to come finish it :P

     

  • At 1/13/2008 8:27 AM, Blogger Sally HP said…

    HA! At least there wasn't pee on it...that would have been sick! I bet it felt good to take a shower when you got home. Sounds like you all had fun, I'm sad to have missed out!

     

  • At 1/13/2008 8:39 AM, Blogger Jodi said…

    good for you.

    I h a not good habitat experience in college, but i think that was an anamoly. Everyone else I know loved it. I should try it again.

     

  • At 1/13/2008 8:56 AM, Blogger Alex Elliot said…

    I remember my lab partner in genetics
    freaking out that her sweatshirt smelled. Seriously I couldn't smell anything. She spent the whole lab being totally concerned about it. After it was over, she went to change into a spare shirt that someone had and it turned out that her cat had peed on the back of her sweatshirt at some point.

     

  • At 1/13/2008 10:35 AM, Blogger Jen of A2eatwrite said…

    This sounds like a great day. It was a wonderful post, Alex.

    And speaking of great adventures, can I nudge you to join our Writing Game? I'd love to have you join us!

     

  • At 1/13/2008 7:08 PM, Blogger Kami said…

    Oh, I can totally smell the dog funk now! Icky...

    Glad you did so well I might have been liable to run screaming in the other direction if assigned the same task!

    What an accomplishment! I mean for you, not me running. That's just lame.

    :-)

     
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Name:Alex Elliot
Home:MA, United States
About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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