Well, Kirk suffered from a fever for most of the day Saturday. He slept as much as possible and by late evening, the fever had broken. His original start time to head out to the worksite was 9PM, but because of the delays he didn't go in until midnight last night. As it turned out, they weren't able to start the work until almost 2AM. The work he was going in to do couldn't be completed until they had finished installing the rafters. Kirk and the rest of the team he was on started work on the Smart House stuff and Kirk was also able to do some work with the Low Voltage team. The house is coming along quickly, and on Sunday afternoon, they were desperately in need of people to help drywall, mud and sand.

As you can see from some of the photos, the house is really two separate structures joined by a hallway. The front house contains the kitchen, dining area and great room. The back portion of the house contains the master bedroom, bath and a workout area, a separate bedroom and bath for Kristina's mother, who is moving in to help care for Kristina and Jordan, and a bedroom and bath for Jordan. The hallway is sandwiched between a courtyard and a patio. The courtyard has a beautiful outdoor stone fireplace (the great room has a separate indoor fireplace).

Kirk came home around 4:30AM and his fever was back, full force. Not a good thing for someone who'd be boarding an airplane in about 14 hours. He slept as late as he could. He was mostly already packed for his trip to Australia. We spent most of the day/afternoon together and then it was time to take him to the airport. :(

He was facing a long, very brutal bit of travel - a flight from LAX to Sydney, a layover, then a hop to Adelaide. Then another flight to Darwin. All in all, almost 24 hours of travel for him - yuck! AND he would be gone for almost a full two weeks. At least I had building the house to distract me for a few days.

After dropping Kirk at the airport, I drove over to do some more work. I figured the nightshift would be the most sparse. When I got there, I was amazed at the work that had been done since I left. the front portion of the house was mostly roofed, they had built in the skylights, the interior was being drywalled & mudded, the patio and courtyard were being prepped (they were laying some of the irrigation piping, etc.). And there were a LOT of people everywhere!

I got the lay of the land - everytime I went, I had to get sorted out all over again. I bumped into my friend Neil. It was HIS team I was on - the framing team. He had been there pretty much since the thing started - almost 48 hours and was barely standing. He was determined to make sure the framing got completed timely and with the very best of quality. In fact, despite the claims of some people who just aren't on these work sites, the job is done very very solidly. One of the reasons Vic was picked as the General Contractor is his dedication to excellence. His team leaders have the same work ethic.

One of the things that caused me to have a good laugh was the drywallers. Each and every one of the drywallers in the house (they had divided themselves up into 4 teams) were all professional, union guys. Now, remember, I told you we were, on the whole, VERY far behind in the work. Ten hours when you only have 106 is really a significant deficit! The drywallers had a bet going - $1000 to the team that finished the fastest. I'll tell you what - do NOT get in those guys' way when they are out to win bragging rights (and a bit of cash too). Keep in mind, these guys, like everyone else, were volunteers - which made the bet all the more interesting. I have no idea who actually won, but even Vic put some money down on one of the teams.

I spent a good part of my time pulling manual labor. The framers were pretty well covered, so I moved debris, carried tiles into the house for the tilers (who were getting close to tiling the bathrooms). In addition, a bunch of us carried bag after bag of shingles from the front of the house to a ladder on the patio. I met some new people - some that I at least knew the names of, and others I just had never met before. I met Noah, the son of the friend of our friend Mike T. Mike was Kirk's team leader and organized the entire Smart House installation. I met Ty, the pastor at another local church. I met Dan and Jenny - both of attend King's Harbor Church (which is where I attend and work). Dan and Ty and I (along with Noah) all spent a good amount of time getting the shingles from the ground onto the roof and then moved to the section of roof where they would be used. It was grueling work and took all four of us (plus a fifth guy who joined right at the end) to complete the work. We took a break for food/drink, and then came back to discover that there were a bunch more tiles on the courtyard side that needed to be carried up the ladder to the roof too!

I got pulled off that job and went in to help the tilers for a while. There was soooo much tile! And it was all beautiful! But each bit was for a different purpose in a different bathroom. With three bathrooms to choose from, we had to be careful where we took each HEAVY box.

At one point in the midst of this, we suddenly had to vacate everything from one of the neighboring houses (I have no idea why). But we had to move a tent, table, tools, materials. A number of us got to work getting everything moved from that location to another.

Finally, around 3AM, I was beat and decided to head home. Part of me wanted to stay, but my body was telling me I was done for the night. And so, my nightshift ended.

Labels: Extreme Home Makeover, Volunteerism