Back Home and Catching Up: The House of Grace

This year's trip included something that our teams haven't done in many years: new construction. The House of Grace, which will serve as on-campus housing for a priest serving in the new church that will also be on the grounds of Holy Cross. When we arrived, the house was well on the way to completion.

Over the course of our week, however, we were able to advance the house in three ways.

Because our team included Doug - a building contractor in "real life" - we were able to take on the large task of tiling the shower in the house. With assistance from Janet, an able volunteer but definitely not a building contractor, Doug took the shower from just a pan on the floor to a fully tiled, walled shower. And while it's probably not possible to connect the dots explicitly, the "brick-and-mortar" fee that our team paid to Holy Cross using the generous grant we received from the St. Luke's, Salisbury Foundation may well have purchased the tiles that Doug installed in the shower.

WendyC and Doug took the lead with our second task on the House of Grace, sanding several rough doors to prepare them to be installed. The porch was an ideal place to do this work, since it was both shaded and open to the breezes coming in from the lagoon.

Thirdly, Doug spent part of an afternoon cutting some plywood sheets and installing them as flooring in the attic. This was not a major task, but it did cross one more item off the list.

Finally, Peggy took advantage of the same shade and breezes on the porch of the house for her art studio when she created the painting that was hung outside the preschool classroom.