Project

Home Renovation

Session: Advanced Design/Build, Winter, Spring, Fall 2025 + Winter 2026
Builders: 23 high school students
Materials: plywood, painters tape, silicone caulking, low-expanding solid foam, self-adhering butyl tape, solid core MDF interior closet bi-fold door, waterproof vinyl planks, gauged floor and wall tile, stainless steel linear shower drain, 6/16″ x 3 1/4″ baseboard moulding, 11/16″ x 2 1/4″ 14′ wood pine casing, white vinyl sliding window, ROCKWOOL wool batt insulation, Ramboard floor protection seam tape, Ramboard heavy duty temporary floor protection, 60″x32″ shower base, and so much more!
Tools and Hardware: safety goggles, safety earmuffs/plugs, tape measure, chop saw, drill, impact driver, shop vac, level, portable LED work lights, caulking gun, box cutter, speed square, bar clamps, hammer,  trowel, diamond cermamic tile cutter, tile spacers, grout,  3 1/8″ framing screws, HEPA dust extractor, cordless jigsaw, kneepads, and so much more!
Community Partner: Rebuilding Together East Bay Network

Description:

Over the course of a year, Advanced Design/Build students took on a full house renovation in West Berkeley. In collaboration with Rebuilding Together East Bay Network—an organization with decades of experience providing home improvements to low-income and elderly homeowners—our most skilled youth builders learned how to build a house from framing, flooring, insulation, drywall, mudding, painting, tiling, and finish carpentry, turning it into a more functional and safe home for the aging couple who live there. We are beyond proud of what this project has brought to the Girls Garage community, Rebuilding Together, the city of Berkeley, and the couple who get to continue to call this place their home.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2026, a day that calls us to service and collective action, we cut the ribbon on this home that now carries the energy of everyone who helped bring it to life:

  • Girls Garage students, parents and guardians, and staff
  • Rebuilding Together East Bay Network, especially Danielle Faulkner
  • Christine Cox from Custom Drywall
  • Kazoo Shearman
  • Martin and Brie from Fireclay Tile
  • Ashby Lumber
  • Kit Switch
  • Yelp Foundation
  • Della Tran
  • Mayor Adena Ishii, City Manager Paul Buddenhagen, and Councilmember Shoshana O’Keefe!