Today was a busy, busy day. We met with Robbie our construction coordinator at 7:30 and discussed the next steps at the trailer. We will all probably be working there all week. After devotion we headed back to the trailer. Four extra hands certainly made the work move even faster. Today Heidi and Ken tackled the master bathroom ceiling. They removed ceiling lights, the wet, falling, drywall and insulation – a big job. We were able to assess the roof decking and know a fairly large section will need replacing. Next step is to get on the roof and remove some shingles and see what the decking looks like from above. Max and Randy worked on removing the rotten wall in the master bedroom. What a mess but big progress is being made. Randy built the temporary wall to hold up the roof while the outside wall is being rebuilt. Max worked on removing the vinyl siding. Robbie purchased the studs and other materials we needed – $300.00 for 3 sheets of plywood and some 2x4s and a couple of 2x6s. Lumber is so expensive these days. Anne and Nell worked on tearing out the living room wall where there is another leak in the roof. This one is not nearly as bad and doesn’t involve any roof decking replacement, at least not yet. They also worked on cleaning the kitchen. We were all very tired at the end of the day but wowed at the amount of work that was accomplished. Great team!
Randy building a temporary ceiling support
Nell and Randy removing windows
Removing more siding
Removing rotted framing from bedroom wall. Of course, when we finished it started raining so we had to cover it with a tarp.
Removing the rest of the damaged ceiling in the bedroom
Heidi and Ken removing the damaged bathroom ceiling
Damaged ceiling removed from bathroom
Opening up another wet wall – this one in the living room
Since we didn’t get to go back to Alabama to close on the house, we had time to play. One of the highly recommended attractions in Laurel is the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art and the walking tour of Laurel that starts from the Museum. Not sure exactly what we expected at the museum, but it far surpassed any expectations. It is a wonderful museum. Of course, they have some great paintings, but they also had other forms of art including baskets from every basket making Native American group. The baskets were incredible. They even had tiny, miniature baskets so small they were resting on a pin and it took a magnifying glass to see the basket. There was also a hanging Chihuly glass sculpture. Love Chihuly! After enjoying the museum, the director, George Bassi, took about 40 of us on a walking tour. We actually just walked about two blocks but he shared a lot of the history of Laurel – very interesting – and information on the homes in Laurel. There is a purple house that is the Wisteria House B&B. It was a great walking tour and we would highly recommend it. The museum and walking tour are both free although they do accept donations. We are really enjoying our time in Laurel. The people are very friendly and appreciative of our work here.
The museum’s large collection of Native American baskets …
… includes this drawer of tiny baskets – some small enough to fit on the head of a pin.
Chihuly Glass Sculpture
The museum director is very knowledgeable about the history of Laurel.
The tour included a visit to St John’s Episcopal Church
The Wisteria House is one of the historic houses we saw that is now a B&B.
Next we walked around downtown Laurel, visiting a number of interesting shops, having lunch at The 5000 food truck, visiting “Home Town” (HGTV Show) shops and just taking in the sights including Erin and Ben’s Airstream. We also visited two very old beautiful churches with beautiful stain glass.
The Laurel Mercantile is one of the tourist attractions here because of the “Home Town” TV show.
This Airstream that was featured on one episode of the show is parked outside the Mercantile store.
The Scotsman General Store
The Workshop Studio from HGTV’s “Home Town” is in the General Store
Penny Candy Inflation in the Scotsman General Store
On the recommendation of a local we had lunch at The 5000 (as in Feeding the Masses) …
… and the food was great.
Saturday morning the church where we are parked had a big food give away. Their food pantry ministry disburses food one Saturday each month to 150-250 families. It opens at 9:00 and there were people already in line when we got up at 6:30. A much needed ministry.
Food Pantry Day
Our new team members, Randy and Nell, arrived about 2:00 pm yesterday. We are looking forward to working with them again. Today we all visited at Laurel First UMC. Another beautiful church. Today was their day to give their third graders a Bible. The pastor talked about the Word and it’s importance in our lives. Good service and after church, as we were leaving, Erin and Ben thanked us for our work in Laurel. We had our team meeting this afternoon and we are all looking forward to anther good week.
It has been a great week in most ways. We have worked at the abandoned and donated mobile home every day. It’s rained most days and the path into the trailer is now very muddy and slick. Very glad we have four wheel drive! With the help of some YWAM young people for one day and one of the case managers, the trailer has been cleaned out! Many bags of garbage to the dump. Also, all the appliances to the dump. When the previous owners left and power was disconnected, there was still food in the chest freezer and the refrigerator. Horrible stench! Five trailer loads to the dump. Everything smells better since we removed all the carpet and carpet pad.
The whole house, even the master bath were carpeted with this blue carpet.
Carpet removed
Removing the carpet left us a lot of tack strips to remove.
Removing the dishwasher for disposal
Carrying out old freezer
DO NOT open the freezer!!!
One of several loads for the landfill
Draining the pool
Taking down the pool
Pool gone
Siding removed so the halves can be separated. We covered it with tarps to keep it dry until the move.
After emptying the house, we began on the master bedroom repairs. We have removed most of the ceiling drywall and insulation as well as the front wall drywall and insulation. Unfortunately, there is a lot of rot. We will be building a temporary wall to support the structure and then replacing the upper and lower plate, studs and wall sheathing. We haven’t begun on the damage in the master bath but there is a hole in the ceiling over the tub, caused by a limb. A tremendous amount was accomplished this week just to get things cleaned out. It was a very good week!
Suited up to remove old insulation
Removing old insulation and ceiling
Cutting ceiling drywall for removal
Bedroom at the end of the week
Our mascot that we found in one of the kid’s room
We were honored to be part of a Bible presentation at a house that last week’s team finished.
One afternoon we watched this turtle burying her eggs near our parking lot. Unfortunately the crows were watching also.
The only down side to our week is that we still own the house and land. We are still dealing with some pretty incompetent people on the closing. They just can’t seem to type a land description with out errors. We sent them exactly what needed to be typed on the deed and title insurance. Yep. Came back with errors – transposition of numbers and one entire line of the property description just omitted. We have sent it back again this morning and another was posted this afternoon – again with errors. We sent it back and have been told “it’s been sent to legal” – for the fourth time! We just wonder how many deeds are out there that are incorrect. What a mess! We are now hoping for closing next week. It will happen. We will be patient and wait on God’s timing. Well, maybe not so patient but… we will try. Hope everyone has a great weekend because we plan to. Without a trip back to Alabama for closing, we have time to play.
Today began with Ken and Heidi inviting us to sit in on their 7:30 meeting with our construction coordinator, Robby, since we are scheduled to take over lead next week. We began by discussing the new job site we were going to today and Robby shared our scope of work. After a short time at the site, we suspect that scope may expand. A double wide mobile home was donated to the agency and we need to prepare it for moving to a new site. Unfortunately, a tree limb fell on the right end of the home some time prior to the donation and there was some significant damage and subsequent leaking. Part of the ceiling in the master bedroom and master bath were on the floor. Some pretty significant repairs will be required on the roof and ceiling as well as the front wall. There are a few other locations in the house that have some water damage as well. The agency is planning to re-roof the entire house but that is not on our list of work.
After devotion we all headed to the job site and we began by cutting back some of the foliage in preparation for the movers. We cleaned out the master bedroom so we would have room to work and pulled up the carpet to allow the floor to begin drying. By then the morning rain had moved out and we returned to the outside work. Anne and Heidi worked on removing the skirting and Max and Ken helped Robby replace the tarps on the roof. They also removed the siding on the right end of the home. We got more done today than we expected. It was a productive and fun day and we got to know Heidi and Ken a little better. We had met them once before but never worked together. They are talented and fun leaders. This will be good week.
Part of our task will be to clear this driveway enough to get a mobile home through.
This is the mobile home we have to get ready to move
Clearing brush from yard
The bathroom when we arrived
The bedroom when we arrived
Removing the debris and furniture from the bedroom
Pulling up carpet
Bedroom at the end of Monday
We covered the leaking roof with fabric panels from billboards.
Preparing to remove the underpinning
Removing siding from the end of the mobile home so it can be separated and moved
RVing With a Purpose 