Walking by

Here's what someone walking or driving by northbound on Tuesday would have seen after the upper clerestory walls were raised. The church building will soon be even more visible.

Like a cat on cold, windy plank

After the high walls went up on Monday, the crew spent Tuesday stabilizing them, putting up catwalks around the top of them, and starting work on the supports for the roof over the offices, kitchen and restrooms. Tar paper was spread on the roof.

The slide show takes you on a quick walk around the building, then shows you how a 2x12 plank is raised to the height of the highest catwalk, and finally shows the boards and trusses that will be put in place over the offices, kitchen and restrooms the rest of the week.

A higher power

Suddenly, Emmanuel Presbyterian Church increased its visibility in the community on Monday as we added the clerestory walls that extend from the front facade to the education building over the fellowship area. Sue was there and captured the process. The following gallery is all her photos. A crane lifted the wall sections, but Steve's crew had to guide them onto the supporting beams and nail them in place. It was quite a high-wire act, as you'll see. And it was all accomplished in about two hours.

Roof work

On Friday morning, Steve's crew was swarming all over the building. I caught some of the activity in the photos below. The roof sheathing is mostly on. Several wall sections have been built for installation later. Some interior walls have been framed in place and others - both interior and exterior - have had sheathing plywood attached. Fascia boards are being installed around the edge of the roof. Take a look.

Out of the depths

On Wednesday morning, Feb. 18, the framing crew had put up plywoood sheathing on the west end of the classroom wing from floor level extending up to the roof trusses. They were also building wall sections that would eventually be raised to form the clerestory above the fellowship area. But that's about a week away.

Inside the narthex, Warren realized that the only way to remove the old ductwork from the old furnace was to cut a hole in the narthex floor. It looks a bit brutal but it got the job done. The ductwork that came out through that hole sits in the sanctuary ready to be carted off for recycling. Warren said he found a good place for that. Unfortunately, the stuff can't be re-used in our building: the furnace and vents will be in different places than they are now. It's much more efficient to build the ducts anew.

In the second photo of the old ductwork, note the window in the background. There will be two more windows like this on each side of the expanded sanctuary. If these and the new ones end two feet higher above the floor, we won't be required to use much more expensive tempered glass in them. Warren is discussing replacement options.

In the last photo, one of the ladders legs sits on a square concrete pad. Support for a new weight-bearing wall will rest on that pad. Earlier, Warren got under the floor, broke through concrete that was already there, built the pad's frame and poured the pad. "If only I had realized I could have just cut a hole in the floor ..." the work would have been a lot easier.

Random patterns

I liked the patterns of light and shadow, the verticals and diagonals, the swirls and curls. Not exactly informative, but there they were.

In God we truss

On Tuesday morning a load of roof trusses was delivered. Sue was there as they were unloaded onto the top of the framing for the classroom wing. There was one little bump in the road. As the crane was stretched out over the classroom wing with a load of trusses, one of the outriggers that stabilize it slipped into the soft ground. The load of trusses dropped a couple of feet onto the framing. No one was hurt and nothing was damaged. The load was unhooked and a more stable footing for the outrigger was constructed. No further problems were reported. Here are photos from Tuesday.



Now here are photos from Wednesday just after noon when the crew is working on the trusses and then later after they've finished. Sue took the later ones. There is also a photo from inside the narthex area. Framing is now being removed there wherever possible.

Raise high the roofbeams

Sue was at the construction site Monday to get these terrific shots of four huge laminated beams being lifted into place by a crane.

First look

Many of us got to see the new construction up close and personal for the first time after church on Sunday. Here are some photos of a few of you who came out. I know I missed many. One other thing: It was very cold and bright, which might explain the expressions on some faces.

Oh, we put up so many walls

The construction site was quiet on Saturday afternoon, but it sure has been a busy week. Many of the interior walls are up. It's much easier to see where various rooms are going to be in the new layout. In the photos below, I've tried to indicate those locations, although occasionally I had to guess at the exact placement of walls.

Also, all the drywall has been stripped from inside the narthex. Quite a mess. The carpet still needs to be pulled up. The wall where we come in will be removed. The back wall of the sanctuary will be moved back to the middle of the big window in the narthex. That's about even with the old wall between Steve's office and Rena's.

Still more walls

By midweek, most of the exterior walls were raised on the new construction, and the framing crew was getting ready to put up some of the load-bearing interior walls.

Meanwhile, Warren, Larry and Paul were removing all the drywall from the narthex and the offices in the sanctuary building.

The roof overhang at the north end of the sanctuary building had to be sawn off Wednesday afternoon to allow installation of new load-bearing walls, beams or trusses. I'm still not exactly clear what's happening there, although I've had it explained to me at least twice. You'll see the results of that toward the end of the slideshow below. Sue contributed several photos to it.

Walls R Us

Since the last set of photos from Thursday, several more walls have gone up. One is ready for raising. These photos are from Saturday.

There are four wall sections along the north side of the building. Closest to the front is the wall for reception, Steve's office and the kitchen (with an outside door to a utility closet). The second wall is for the restrooms (again with outside access to a utility closet). The third wall is behind the preschool and Sunday school offices. The fourth wall is alongside three classrooms.

While the walls were being built outside, Warren was exploring construction details in the existing building that were covered by drywall. He also took everything out of the narthex, the old offices and the back of the sanctuary and moved them to the front of the sanctuary. They'll soon need covering or moving to the storage shed.