Life in Portland, 2007

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Last Saturday (June 16, 2007) I helped out at the Habitat for Humanity Restor. It is a little like a Home Depot of Goodwill in that people can bring in their excess building materials for a donation and then they are either used on a building project or sold to others needing building materials. The pictures above show the warehouse and parking lot (across the street). They are located in downtown Portland just across the river from the River Park (where the Rose Festival was). However, it is a quite industrial area just under the ramps for the Morrison Bridge and right by the train tracks.	=0=
Sometimes when remodelers take out old kitchen cabinets to replace them and if they are in good condition, they will bring them by Restor. They had gotten in a bunch Friday evening and I sorted them and displayed them so that people could see them (if you stack things so they little space, no one can see what they look like and they don't get sold). Whew! I haven't work like that for a bit. They also have a truck (shown below) which they use for deliveries and, mostly, pickups. The truck is rated for just under 26,000 lbs, which means that no special license is required to drive it (by about 40 lbs), but they seem to have a hard time find people willing to drive it. I think I will volunetter for that. In the parking area across from the store, they also have an outdoor storage area that is protected from the weather (at least somewhat) by being under the Morrison Bridge.	=0=
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Habitat for Humanity has lots of builds going on in the Portland area, but they don't seem to usually ask for miscellaneous volunteers. It seems they mostly go for teams from a particular company or such, which is sad because it is great work. However, in early August they were doing framed and asked for miscellaneoius volunteers and I was able to help out. It was at the Borthwick site (above) and the organizer was Ron, shown here. Ron took lots of pictures as worked and posted them on the web. I chose some but you can see Ron's pages on flickr.com	=0=
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When we started, they had just finished putting up the first floor frame and we squared it up, making sure that the walls were vertical and square (lots of measuring and pushing and nailing supports in place). There was a couple (above) who went around and trimmed out the doors and windows with a sawzall. Then we started measuring and installing the floor joists for the second floor.	=0=