Habitat for Humanity East Bay

Week 11

Friday the 13th was a lucky day for the Bonifacio house in Concord as 8 Women’s Crew members (Monica, Bobbie, Cel, Debbie, Jenni, Janet, Lee), Jacob Miller of Martinez, and Chuck Morton got to work on assignments from Mike.

Chuck and Cel got a good start on installing the upper cabnets in the Kitchen. As usual, nothing is square, making this a challenging project…not to mention not always finding studs where you’d expect them to be.

Monica continued to cut in outlet boxes and assist with running the electrical cable from the attic. That electrical cable was being installed by Bobbie (Attic Rat) with an assist from Jenni. They started the day re-installing the home runs when we found out they could not be stapled to the top of the 2X4’s but need to drill holes and then pass them through. There was a switch in the living room that needed to be wired. Monica used the 4’ long drill bit to drill up into the attic via the hole cut for the switch. After getting wires run she discovered the hole actually went via the hallway on the other side of the wall. OOPS!! Another patch required.

The rest of the crew spent the day digging and hauling dirt to a temporary location in the front yard. They started with the path from the front door to the sidewalk. They also got the bender board staked in for the concrete form. Next came the driveway. They broke up all the dirt that will get hauled to the back yard Saturday. No one wanted to destroy the sunflower, so, for the time being, it still stands!

Saturday the 14th we had 9 Women’s Crew members (Monica, Diane, Bobbie, KO, Amy, Non, Debbie K, Maggy, and Flor) and Jacob again. Flor joined Bobbie up in the attic to continue running electrical cable and Monica continued below, cutting in ceiling boxes and assisting running cable. After showing Amy what needed to be done to modify the front sprinklers, she and Mike took a run to Home Depot for parts.

Diane took the rest of the crew and started hauling all the extra dirt from the front yard to the back. Mike had made a bridge over the trench so they could access the back via the garage. This was hot, back breaking work but they got it all moved and evenly distributed in the back. Hans arrived and installed the electrical sub-panel in the garage and a media center box for the voice cable and TV coax. Just before lunch, Hans held a short clinic showing us the proper way to install the electrical boxes and install the outlet devices on the wires.

After lunch Debbie and KO moved to the back to apply stain to one of the picnic tables that will be left for the family. Diane and her crew set about to get the driveway forms set for the concrete. It was also decided that we’ll leave the corner where the sunflower is as a planting area. We were all very happy about that. We’ll see if we can make it survive at least until Kathy returns.

Photos from this past weekend are already posted in the online scrapbook. Note that due to size we had to split the scrapbook into Pre-lead abatement photos and post-lead abatement photos (newest photos are always at the end, so scroll down). Check back here next week for another chapter in the Bonifacio Project Blog!

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