Yummy got herself attached to a group called Rebuilding America. Awhile back they contacted her for help with some gardening around Baltimore. She has that DC Guerilla Gardening group. She should know what she's doing. She made friends with one of the higher ups in the Baltimore part of the group and we got roped into another project last weekend.
Rebuilding America is a nationwide group that helps fix up homes for those without the resources to do it themselves. And some gardening in areas that need it.
We went to a women's shelter in Baltimore. It's a place that gives homeless women and their kids a place to live until they can get their feet under them again. We were originally asked to help with some landscaping, but someone else hired professional landscapers. So we got in on another part of the house. Yummy and I painted a small room on the second floor and did it right. Electrical faceplates were removed, edges were taped off, any drips or paint in inappropriate areas were cleaned up, and paint slop done by previous painters was scraped off as best as we could. We wanted to apply some plaster to damage in the walls, but that was beyond the scope of this project.
While Yummy did the final touches I went to install new doorknobs on rooms where the locks were bad or keys were lost. We intended to go release the dove when we were done with these tasks. Instead we got a good look at the work of others. This work couldn't stand. We stayed to fix what they screwed up.
One room had a single blotchy coat up with nothing at the edges. Another had two coats, but they painted all electrical outlets, light switches, a stainless steel [looking] towel rack, the floorboards, a not inconsiderable amount of the sink, and the part of the ceiling within a foot of the walls. People who stayed had to use white paint to cover up the parts of the ceilings in several rooms that had gotten hit. In several of the rooms that was a considerable part of the ceiling.
The doors had more issues than needing new knobs and locks. Some had clearly been forced open a few times. One needed super long screws to reach where the wood wasn't broken away. Another screw was acting as a block to prevent the strike plate from being screwed in to deep.
In another room the area around the knob was busted and splintering. The old lock was actually bent and a pain to remove. I installed the new knob just so it'd be handy whenever the fix was put in place.
After doing that I tackled the room where they'd painted everything. Someone had new faceplates so I was able to use those. The switch still needed scraping. So did the towel rack. So did the sink. The sink needed not only scraping away of paint but all kinds of filth.
New window shades had been made. But the guy at Lowes claimed they needed to be half an inch shorter than they measured. So almost none of the new shades fit their windows.
As the day got late I realized the power was off in about 1/3 of the floor we were working on. The breaker was kind of nice. Sure, the switch barely moved when the circuit was blown. Breakers are like that. But next to the switch was a red marker indicating that it had blown. I need me one of those.
We were supposed to be out by 4:00. We ended up staying until 6:00 just because we couldn't bring ourselves to stop fixing damage caused by others in the group who had left around 1 or 2 o'clock.
Yummy wants to adopt a room. One room. In that room we'd pay for paint, plaster, broken light fixtures, doors and door frames, and even new sheets for the beds.
If I were doing it again I'd want to bring sandpaper to remove where the wooden dressers and bed frames had been drawn on with markers.
Check for Rebuilding Together groups in your area. They need people with enthusiasm, but they also need people with skills. They can't use people below the age of 14, but projects like these are good for teaching your older kids how to do stuff like paint and replace doorknobs. Just make sure they have someone who knows how to do that stuff with them. Otherwise you get a mess with no lessons learned.
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