Girls Play House, Women Build Them

Strong women with big hearts!

Hey everyone! It’s a sunny day in the Twin Cities, which means it was a perfect day to volunteer with the Twin Cities affiliate once again! I grabbed my tool pouch and headed out to St. Paul bright and early to get to my first build of the year. I was so excited I had the opportunity to do a Women Build event with a great group of ladies. Women Builds are so much fun because they really allow all of us women to maximize our potential and realize that we are capable of doing the hard labor that goes into any construction project…and without men to take over. 

Our site supervisor Marcia started the day off with the typical description of Habitat, since there were a few ladies who had never built before (how exciting!). Did you know that Habitat for Humanity affiliates set their own mortgages for their homes based on the new homeowner’s income? It is often said that to be financially stable people should not spend more than 30% of their income on their housing; therefore, Habitat works with homeowners and adjusts their mortgages to about 30% of that individual’s income. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s pretty cool that the people at Habitat focus on meeting people where they are so they can have a place to call home. 

"Decking"-beginning of

the second floor

After kicking off the morning with our team meeting we got right to work. A team of ladies stayed on the ground and worked on cutting out the stairs, using a hand saw to meticulously cut out every single groove that the flat stair pieces will eventually sit on. I spent my day on the top of the structure with a group of three other ladies doing most of the decking that needed to be done. Decking is our semi-fancy word for installing the plywood subfloor that will be the base of the second floor of the home-a very important job to get right. Ironically, even though I am quite tall I am also not a fan of heights (go ahead and laugh, I do at myself all the time). However, I wanted to take on the challenge and we climbed up the scaffolding to get to work. 

We used 8’x4’ sheets of tongue and groove plywood for this project, along with caulk, a sledge hammer, nails, and our old trusty hammers. To set up a safe workspace we had

Adding caulk to trusses

before securing a board

to nail down a board in front of wherever we were working-this acted as fall protection. I don’t want to be falling through the floor to my death! Then we fit our board into place using the tongue and grooves. Once we had the board where we wanted it, one of us would lift the board back up while the rest of us placed caulk along the length of the trusses that would be supporting the board. Fun fact: for the board to be safe, it needs to span the length of at least three trusses. Otherwise you are quite literally walking on egg shells hoping that that last bag of chips and that extra glass of wine didn’t push you past the weight limit that lil’ piece of plywood will hold. But I digress. Once the caulk was placed on the trusses we would lay the board back down, hit it into place with a sledge hammer to ensure the boards were snug against each other, and then we placed six nails along each truss to finish securing the board. If a board needed to be cut we’d cut it on the “roof” with a circular saw and continued right along. 

Building scaffolding

The last hour and a half of our day was spent building a second level of scaffolding so future workers could finish our decking work and begin making the walls of the second floor. Man, that was a whole job in itself! I felt like I did a whole day’s work just to prepare for the real work! it was a great demonstration of teamwork among the entire group and we all felt really accomplished at the end of the day. 

Every once in a while I would take a step back and look up at the bright blue sky above me, feeling the heat of the sun on my back and the cool breeze blowing. Then I’d scan the worksite and see all the progress we made today. There’s nothing like watching a house take shape before your eyes, and realizing that structures that people live whole lives in are being built by my own two hands, and the hands of many other dedicated volunteers.

St. Paul Women Build home

I am so happy the good Lord gave me an able body to do His good works with, and that Habitat is empowering women globally to pick up a hard hat and prove to our former childhood selves that we can go past simply playing house. We can build them!

Until next time- pssst.....it may be sooner than you think!

Lisa

P.S. I couldn't resist some really bad construction humor. Next time I build, ya'll better