The Habitiat for Humanity school project ~ Mom + Son = FUN!

The team from Woodward Academy ready to build

Me with my adorable Son Levi
As a stylist I usually arrive at a finished home and add finishing touches~ so when my dear son asked me to help him and some school mates work on a home for Habitat for Humanity, I jumped at the chance.

This is Jason our Leader a real inspiration, and oh so patient man!
Saturday 8:00 am ~ We met at the Habitat for Humanity Warehouse. After a great safety lecture by Jason ( our team leader and head honcho) we were told how the program worked. Then we met the homeowner Kathy who said a few words, and briefly thanked us " she said if she spoke anymore she would start crying", and she did tear up, as did I. The prospect of building her new home was overwhelming. But the Habitat team has it down, and quickly separated us into 2 large teams.
One team stayed at the warehouse to build the walls of Kathy's house, and the other team went to the building sight to finish the floors and build the front porch ( our team headed to the site).

This is what the home looked like when we arrived.

Everyone unloaded all the building materials
Then everyone hammer in hand started laying the floor.
Levi with glue gun in hand, he looks pretty happy!
9:00 am~ After instructions from Jason, we started construction in full. Everyone was excited to get started and I myself was pretty jazzed about starting the porch with my team. It was even more fun to watch my son with glue gun in hand wildly gluing floor boards before the entire group started nailing them down...What a sound, 60 people all pounding at the same time.


The porch team, this was my team.
raising the first wall, pretty exciting!

We worked diligently until lunch around 1:30 pm. It was great to meet new people and all work together for one goal.

Kathy and Jason, stopping for a photo op.
Kathy and company carrying the kitchen wall.
Putting up the interior walls.
Kathy the homeowner could not have been nicer, and she too was there sweating and working with all of us. It must have been a bit surreal for her to see the walls of her home go up in one day.
By the end of the day she was walking around with me inside her home, walls in place, inside and out.
We chatted about decor and wall colors, how her kitchen would look.

It was a fantastic day, one of those picture perfect fall days, and I could not think of a better way to spend a Saturday with my son, constructing a dream home for Kathy and her family. All the walls were up by 3:30 pm truly amazing!

from this.....
to this in one day......fantastic!
I also must add with all said at the end of the day, all these young people stepped up and worked hard with no complaints. It really warmed my heart that these young high school students all understood like I did that this was serious and and deep honor to be participating in someones dream, and someone's home, with each nail we all took care to make sure we had it perfect for Kathy and her family.

And as far as I can tell, Habitat for Humanity, has it down pretty perfectly.