Earlier this month, around June 3rd or 4th, we started interior demolition of Mr. Bishop's 65 year old wooden frame house. He had helped build the home when he was 20 years old. the City of Tuscaloosa was concerned with his welfare living in the home as it was and looked to Habitat to help out. The main concern was that the kitchen floor was falling through (the five generations of sheet vinyl was the only thing holding things up) and the fact that the hot water heater (gas fired) was venting into the home with no flue.   the city agreed to house Mr. Bishop at a local motel during the construction. The city's contact person was Ms. Becky Wright. She is in charge of the homeless issues in Tuscaloosa. On the first day or two, she informed me that Mr. Bishop would be celebrating his 85th birthday on June 20th. I then opened my big mouth and told her (and the universe) that I would finish the project by then. Becky's husband is a local firefighter and she had arranged for him and other firefighters to come out and help with the demolition and then re-construction of the home. Home Depot had agreed to finance the project with a $15,000 grant. The first few days, we tore the bazoogies out of the old house. Tore out about half of the old flooring system, all of the old leaky metal roof, all the old doors and windows.   the house never had any insulation of any sort in the walls or ceilings or floors, which was probably a good thing in that the fumes from the hot water heater could escape to the outside of th house. The old roof had about a 5" sag from one end of the ridge to the other, and I would have been content to set the new metal roofing direct on that, but Brandon came by early one mornign and stretched a string to make a straight line on the ridge. Next morning, the Mennonites showed up and blocked the bazoogies out of the trusses and mad a perfectly straight new roof. We did the same with the new hardi siding on the exterior - levelled up a house that no section was level (except for the newly framed floor inside the walls).   All new electric and plumbing roughed in. Changed the floorplan around a bit, while we had the chance and doubled the size of th living room and raised the ceiling from 7 feet to 8'6" and, alright, alright, put in a little "Peter was here" simple, decent moldings, inlaid floors and archways. The old entry steps were way wrong, so we re-formed new concrete landing and steps the fit the salvaged beautiful and free cast iron handrails. One side of it was a full section, but the other was only for the steps, so I had to build a little bench for it to die into.   Used lots of surplus material from other jobs and the ReStore to try and stay in budget, but you know, they are going to change that expression about life's absolutes (death and taxes) to include construciton over-runs.   Had a big wlecome home on Thursday, the 20th, like we said. Not quite done, but Mr. Bishop is in the hotel till Thursday this week. That should leave time enough to finish up, get our final inspection and get the furniture (courtesy of High Socks for Hope) in and get Mr. Bishop back in his home. His nephew from Chicago, Frank, has been helping me everyday and is quite handy and a good student. Had groups from Capstone Church, Home Depot, the University's law students and interns and the veterans' group on campus all coming out to help. Another former neighbor of Mr. Bishop's, Don, has been painting up a storm. He's a professional painter and has been keeping up with the trim guys.
      Group from Ireland has returned to work with us this week . Project Children. They will be working on three different projects with us.   They are staying at Y's Acres.
      That's all for this week.   Bye Ya'll.   Peter