The morning began with to delicious cinnamon french toast. We did a speedily efficient clean up while Spike entertained the troops.
Good news, no future damage at Pauger and Overton has wonderful windows.
We progressed enough on Pauger St. to begin priming. You can see from the pictures it makes a world of a difference.
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| Enjoying our lunch together in the much needed shade surrounded by our newly primed windows and shutters. We were asked by a person driving by to do their home next. Good sign! |
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| Edie removing the rotten and damaged shutters from the left side window. |
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| Joyce Dapping a large chip in the wooden trim, can you see it? |
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| Sandy and Sheri hard at work on the backside windows. |
On the back side after lunch, Sandy removed old cauking and sanded the windows. The rest of the team, Sheri, Joyce and Sarah came along after and primed them.
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| Pauger home from across the street. |
In total, we primed two of the front windows and four of the back side windows. Leaving for tomorrow hopefully the main right window and 4 additional side windows, completing all the window priming. Will we get it done?!?! the clock is ticking!
On the interior, Jimmie worked with Christine and Eric further leveling the floor, ensuring this home will be level and secure from the ground up.
While out on Overton, the team took special care to install special window trim and frames. These window frames are waterproof, fireproof and moldproof, very sustainable and 'green.'
However, they take a special blade to cut, so it is very time consuming.
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| The finished product. |
Using new materials and building in new ways seems to be the way Project Homecoming is moving, if this home is any indication. It is the first of thirteen to be build in the Gentily neighborhood. They won a $500,000 grant from the National Neighborhood Stabilization Program to build these homes, through not just sustainable building but also thinking ahead for the future owner. Beyond providing sensible financing for the new home, they are also keeping the city from raising the taxes for five years. All this thoughtfulness beyond the initial build may be what keeps a low-income person in such a home.
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| They also spent some time completing interior wall frames. |
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| It was hot out there, even the neighborhood cat needed a break. |
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| The plans for the the Overton Dr. home. Three bedrooms, two baths home |
This evening was also the special evening of inviting homeowners to dinner. The family from Pauger were unavailable to have dinner with us. But we did invited John and Minnie from last year. Remember them? We also have our construction manager Christina for dinner as well. Unfortunately, no other new homeowners were able to visit from any of the other sites.
It is interesting that what we are lacking in learning new stories of New Orleans' families we are building a solid relationship with the rest of the Olive Tree volunteers. We have two gentlemen from the Foothill Presbytery of NC who closed the devotion for the evening. One spoke of the importance of volunteering and how we are called to bring this call back home. While the other spoke of the importance of Jesus' mission as described in Matthew, he was called "to bring good news to the poor." As I write this blog, our group is sharing parting words with John and Minnie. The bonds are strong from such a short period of time.
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