A vacant Chambersburg home will go from shabby to fabulous with the help of local volunteers this summer.

Habitat for Humanity of Franklin County is currently "rehabbing" a house at 402 E. Washington St. to benefit a local family who qualifies for the program.

Known as a "Habitat Partner Family," the program chooses a local family based on income, need for housing, ability to make payments and commitment to working on the house with Habitat, said Mark Story, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Franklin County.

"We actually sell the house to a family, but the biggest advantage of our program is that we sell the home at cost so there's zero profit margin," he said.

In addition, Habitat handles the financing of the home so the family receives a mortgage with zero percent interest rate, Story said.

Although a family is interested, they haven't been able to move forward in the process since construction on the Washington Street home is still in the beginning stages, he said.

Habitat is currently awaiting designs from a local architect they have been working with, Story said.

The property came up for sale by owner in 2010 and Habitat purchased the house in January after volunteers researched the costs and benefits of the property, he said.

Since then, assessments have been made by Habitat board and volunteer committee members as well as borough officials and a local architect.

The most time consuming part so far as been investigating any environmental issues of the house, which was built in the early 1900s, Story said.

"Our mission is to provide safe, decent and affordable housing," he said. "If there were any environmental hazards we wanted to mitigate them early on."

The Baxter Group, Inc. has donated their services to remove any lead paint and asbestos from the house, he said.

Volunteers also removed the siding from the house last week to make an accurate assessment of the house's structure, Story said.

No definitive plans will be made until designs are submitted; however, Habitat has some ideas for the house.

A portion of the roof will be redesigned and the three-bedroom upstairs will be converted into a larger, two-bedroom living space, Story said.

"The end result is going to be great, but it has been a slow project so far," he said.

This is the third rehab project Habitat has participated in and chose a house in the borough since they qualify for some grant money and it would remove a blighted, vacant property from the town, Story said.

"It's obviously good for the family, they will possess their own home, but it's good for the community because nobody else will fix this house," he said.