---
title: "habitat for humanity restore — alex laughnan"
description: "after the hackathon, i received the upgraded site and just performed a few small adjustments to create a more long-term solution for their content managers. this involved updating the administrative theme, updating the wysiwyg editor, and preparing a content manager guide for those who would be editing the website. i helped by setting up their new hosting company, adjusting dns settings, and pushing the finalized site to production."
url: "https://alexlaughnan.com/experience/habitat-humanity-restore/"
---

[← experience](https://alexlaughnan.com/experience)

# habitat for humanity restore

portland metro & clark county restores

![pdx restore homepage](https://alexlaughnan.com/experience/habitat-humanity-restore-0.jpg)

### the client

the portland metro, washington county, and clark county restores are dedicated the re-use of materials. they continue to keep 2,800 tons of usable materials out of the landfill each year and have raised over $1.8 million to build habitat for humanity homes in our local community. the primary source of labor from these stores is provided by volunteers ([looking to volunteer?](http://pdxrestore.org/volunteer)).

_“we achieve our mission only because individuals like you help us keep our store operations running smoothly. volunteers give our stores a unique fun, easy going, creative work environment that encourages our customers to keep coming back. we are truly thankful for everyone who has helped us along the way.”_

### what they needed

due to the nature of their work, the stores rarely have more than a handful of full- or part-time staff. there are several administrators for the region, but even they have better things to do than create dreamweaver templates all day (don’t we all?). they were looking for a website upgrade that would make their website easy to update, responsive, and representative of their branding.

### how i helped

after offering to volunteer my services, i created the basic drupal 7 structure. this included modules, content types, taxonomy terms, and set several site settings. once this had been completed, the project was taken over with the [hackathon for social good](https://wvpdx13-hackathon.eventbrite.com/) in portland (may 19, 2013). the developers did some incredible work on the site and incorporated a branch of the haiku theme.

after the hackathon, i received the upgraded site and just performed a few small adjustments to create a more long-term solution for their content managers. this involved updating the administrative theme, updating the wysiwyg editor, and preparing a content manager guide for those who would be editing the website. i helped by setting up their new hosting company, adjusting dns settings, and pushing the finalized site to production.

### results

-   a new site that is fully responsive and works correctly on all browsers and devices.
-   maintained the uniform look of the habitat for humanity restores branding.
-   integrated [webform](https://drupal.org/project/webform) to create a mobile-ready submission page for donation pickups.

### technology

linux, apache, php, mysql, drupal 7, haiku (theme)