Thursday, June 12, 2003

Please scroll down to view photos from today!

Take 100 Pounds of Nails, and mix it with love...

  Today we finished the outside walls of the house, and though it is incredible, we also finished the inside walls (frames & studs and door frames). Brent and Rodney had gone over last night to lay out where all the rooms would be, so the youth did not have to wait on that process.  Therefore the youth could just start nailing boards together, which they did! 

We also got exterior sheeting on most of the house, and began putting up ceiling joists!  It was almost constant pounding of 15-20 hammers in various parts of the house all day long.  We used up two fifty pound boxes of nails, one large nails and one small, and had to go buy another fifty pound box of big nails today! 

It started to rain on us and continued for about an hour during the morning.  But everyone had so much energy we all just kept right on going.  Brent oversaw the whole project, and we probably wore him out with questions all day!  I ran the miter saw to cut off close to 200 studs with a team of youth who helped get the lumber to the saw and take the finished studs to be nailed up, while Jim worked on making headers for all the doorways, and Rodney worked with another team to put up sheeting, which will double as their siding, on the outside of the house.  It rained harder, so eventually we moved the saw under shelter to get out of the rain--but we kept cutting those boards!  Then the rain stopped and the sun came out and "broiled" us in the afternoon!  Bev and Marian did a "load" of laundry today, and fixed our lunch, and also found time to come out and work, and Kim worked with us on the house helping youth put together wall sections and setting them up all day.

In the evening we were treated to a Cajun meal at the church (a Catholic church center, where we have been eating in their gym with an attached kitchen). 

It was a wonderful day, and I'm leaving out some really neat things that we want to tell you about Sunday.  Meanwhile, here are just a few pictures below...