A Day with Habitat for Humanity

On Saturday Rob and I helped build a row of townhouses with some people from my office for Habitat for Humanity. This was our first time helping the organization and it was definitely a learning experience. I was expecting to do some painting or smaller projects but we literally put up walls, installed flooring and carried sheets of wood that weighed more than me. When I was a kid I helped my dad build stuff but I was more excited about wearing the workbelt. Now I know some terms for contractors that had an entirely different meaning before:

Term: 8 and 10 nails
Before: Really long nails.. time for a manicure  
After: There's a size difference for the nail, but there's also different things you do with them. 9 times out of 10 we used the 8s.

Term: Brace                        
Before: Something to help support an achy joint. If they said braces, it meant the stuff an orthodontist puts to help straighten your teeth
After: Small support structures that are used when connecting walls. You have to use an 8 nail. Small piece of wood, small nail. If you use a 10, you'll split the wood.

Term: TGI
Before: Abbreviation for Thank God It's...Friday
After: Wood boards that look like makeshift gutters that help support planks of wood. In this case, we used them to help support the sheets of wood that were for the second level of the house

Term: Toenail
Before: The nail on your toe (duh)
After: To support a plank of wood to another, you put nails in on the angle. You have to use an 8 nail.

Term: Sawall
Before: If you saw it, you'd think it was an electric slicer for Thankgiving or something
After: It's a saw that can saw all types of wood.

There were several other terms that got tossed around but it was definitely cool to learn how to build a house. We had a great time working with some of the people on the site. I definitely lucked out because my group was more fun than Rob's team who was doing flooring. That team seemed to forget we were people volunteering and didn't know how to build a house. Either way it'll be cool to go back one day and say we helped build that.