Bellingham (Whatcom County), WA Habitat for Humanity

Bellingham (Whatcom County) HFH

The worksite was a busy place.

We arrived in Bellingham, WA at the beginning of June to start the northwestern portion of our builds. 

More new experiences.  More new stuff to learn!

Bellingham was the largest group we had worked with. It had the greatest number of housing projects that it was working on, the largest staff,  giant “blitz build” days, lots of local volunteers and the largest care-a-vanner contingent we'd worked with yet.  Bellingham itself is a blue collar town north of Seattle almost up to the Canadian border and has  many similarities with Burlington. It's just above the skagit valley and you don't have to go far out of the city proper before you are in farm country.  The valley is rimmed by mountains and Bellingham is set on Bellingham Bay, part of the Strait of Georgia which, after wending its way through some islands, makes its way to the pacific ocean.

We worked hard while we were there. We were finishing up a townhouse complex of four, two floor, three bedroom units in Bellingham, continuing the framing and starting the sheathing on one cluster of four, two floor townhouses that will be part of a mixed use development with a total of 32 housing units and 4-6 curb level retail spaces in Everson and worked on a single family house in Custer. There was more than enough work for all of us to do!  This was also our first time as team leaders, not that that was terribly hard, but it was an extra element, especially since it was our first time.

On our weekends off, we explored the area, spent time with family; Ethan and Stephanie, Peggy and Kelly and their new puppy, Asher (Martin's sister and wife) and tried to recover from the previous week's work.

On to pics:

Our camping area had a little pond with a momma and baby ducks as well as a magnificent baso profundo chorus of bull frogs to sing us to sleep each night.

A pic of our camping area in Bellingham. 

The first two weeks we spent most of our time in Everson. 

Artist rendering of the project

Isn't this a cool shot? They had a PR person who took this with a drone

Martin and I on our first day. We're sheathing the garage walls of one of the units. Truth be told, it was all I could do to hold some of those nail guns up! They were so heavy!

Our team. 🩷  We had folks from Oregon, Seattle, California, Colorado and of course, Vermont. 💚

Martin and I sheathing another unit's garage wall.

After putting up sheathing on these walls, I switched out jobs to one that fit my abilities a bit better. (The sheets were really heavy and the nail guns were really heavy which, in turn, made me less than efficient and my  back pretty cranky.) Martin started working with another care-a-vanner, Paul and they sheathed the rest of the first floor of all four units and then went to Custer and sheathed the single family house. They were the sheathing A team.

I moved to building walls.                      The view from the second floor. Safety rails are up, and it looks like the start of a wall being laid out on the floor, but not much yet …

Nice view of the mountains in the background. 

Lola and I ended up working together quite a bit. She was an excellent and patient teacher and I learned a lot from her. Like how to read a drawing to determine which wall it was, which direction it faced, did it have windows or a door and how big the windows, headers, cripples, and jacks were.

Here we are standing on the first, second floor wall that was completed and ready to be raised. We built it. We were feeling strong and proud. 💪 

They did something unique in Bellingham regarding the roofs.  We built the roof on the ground and then “flew” the completed roof onto the structure with a crane. I don't have a lot of experience, but it certainly seemed like it was an easier way to build the roof.

After it's built on the ground it gets flown into place. This was a big event for the Whatcom County Habitat for Humanity, a “Raising the Roof” with a catered lunch, awards and nearly 100 guests.

Hooking the roof to the crane

The roof is hooked on and ready to “fly”

It's flying!

There's the 2nd floor wall that Lola and I built standing tall and proud behind the garage roof. Meanwhile, some of the other guys are making sure the roof placement is correct and nailing it in place.

a bunch of us care-a-vanners are lined up and watching the show.

The single family home in Custer.

One weekend we drove along the bay to this great oyster bar. It was right on a rocky point where this family had been farming/harvesting since 1890.  We had three different kinds of oysters and they were delicious.  I mean soooo good and with such different flavors between the three kinds. It was a lovely afternoon, complete with a bald eagle perched in a tree, fishing boats bringing in their catches, the sun shining and there was even just a little breeze. 

The catch is in, everything cleaned up and now workers are just shooting the breeze.

flowers

and buds


Next blog: Time off in Bellingham: exploring San Juan Islands and whale watching with Ethan

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