Never walk in darkness

Early Friday, Larry and Mary Anne hurriedly shuttled between Home Depot and McLendon's finding outdoor lighting fixtures for the classroom wing, the kitchen and offices. It took two roundtrips, Mary Anne said, but the results look great.

As the week ended, lots of doors had handles, the preschool playyard fence neared completion, the kitchen was ready for finish painting, some sinks were installed and the water fountains were in place.

Patching things up

Sue got the call Thursday morning to run over to the church construction site where the crew was pouring, tamping, rolling and burning a smooth, solid transition from the new concrete plaza in front of the church to the old blacktop driveway. Her photos show the crew doing a fine job and doing it quickly.

Says Sue:

I almost missed them. The asphalt was already in place but they were still smoothing it, making a clean edge and sealing it. ...

You should have seen all the equipment they had on site just for that little strip; a large truck that was pulling a trailer with a large piece of equipment (probably used to pick up the old asphalt), the truck with the new asphalt, a truck with a trailer that transported the small 'steam' roller, a bright red truck that probably belonged to the man in charge.

It was interesting to watch the men work and clean up after they were finished.

Meanwhile, Carlos is doing a great job of building the new fence for the preschool playyard.

The kitchen is taking shape and you can imagine it filled with counters, cabinets and appliances, and lots of mouthwatering scents. The fire alarm pull has been installed right next to the back door light switches. Hope that's not a problem. Turning on the fan over the range opens a big vent in an outside wall.

Toilet bowls and other parts filled two pallets in the staging area and some were already distributed to restrooms around the building, but none had been installed yet.

Warren, Coles and Bob J. were putting in new door handles all over the place.

Painting has been completed for the most part in the offices, restrooms and classrooms, but the main fellowship area, the sanctuary, the kitchen and some storage areas still need to be finished.

Sue's report and photos (Lee's editing)

These are miscellaneous things that have happened early in the week.

The toilets were delivered. The sealing of the kitchen drywalling is done.

The bathrooms were unwrapped after painting. You can now see the difference in the decorative tile used in the men's and women's rooms.

The access to the crawlspace under the classrooms by the back door was finished with a door and box (and there's that dog again!).

The lamppost -- pipe -- that held up our security light was cut off its base.

A cage (city calls it a safety platform) was built around the exhaust system for the stove fan.

Warren had floated a sort of light cement on the hallway and kitchen subfloors to level them in preparation for flooring.

Underground entrances and a playyard

Sue has been busy again gathering evidence of progress on the church construction. These photos show work on improving the entrance to the areas under the buildings, plus drywall mudding in the kitchen, and delivery of chips for the preschoolers.

Where's Inspector McKinley?

Certainly, a lot has gone on at the church the week ending Friday, August 21. The final joint material for the front awning arrived. The outside fire alarm was installed. Drywall was going up in the kitchen, as was the pass-through counter. Warren was running wires for the organ speakers over the sanctuary entrance doors.

Painting was everywhere with lovely pastels emerging here and there among the dominant warm beige tones.

But as I edited these photos it seemed like Inspector McKinley was emerging doggedly everywhere, too; but it was just in five of the photos and only three are obvious.

Painting prep

Painters spent the week ending Friday, August 14, getting ready to paint. Everything that was going to be painted next week was covered or wrapped or taped. There was still some sanding going on.

Meanwhile, the Emmanuel crew had been been busy.

Temporary hollow-core doors replaced raggedy sheets of plywood at the main entrance. Counters for the sinks were built and installed in the restrooms. All the remaining dirt areas that are supposed to be grass in the landscape plan were hydroseeded. There were big areas right in front of the building, along the north side that needed it and smaller areas at the south door of the education wing, near the mobiles, near the shed and around the edges of the new grass. As a result, the city approved the landscape permit.

The new door to the utility basement was finished, gravel was placed around the outside wall in places to keep dirt from touching the siding, and a French drain for the playyard was finished.

In the kitchen, the fire suppression kit and a stainless steel back splash were added to the range hood.

Spreading the green

Sue caught a couple of shots of the hydroseeders at work during the second application on the remaining bare spots on Wednesday, August 12.



This is the truck the stuff came in.



Here, it's almost finished being spread on a bare spot in front of the main entrance.



A little closer look.

Plastic or paper

Most everything that won't be painted is covered in plastic or paper: windows, doors, cabinets, vinyl floors, tile, alarms, switches and so on. Rooms have been neatened up. Dick and Judy spent all morning Wednesday tackling the mess that the sanctuary has been. They tossed junk and moved the good stuff into organized, covered piles away from the walls. Larry and Paul moved old, but still usable doors to the covered pile of heavy-duty lumber out behind the old shed.

Larry, Mary Anne and Paul were working outside, as well, cleaning up junk and spiffing up the landscaping on the north side of building.

The grass seed folks came Wednesday morning and hydroseeded the entrance, the front half of the north side of the building and several places where there was bare dirt around the grounds. Larry said help with a new watering schedule will be needed soon.

Warren put temporary entrance doors at the front of the building replacing the old sheets of plywood that had hung there.

Another crew has punched the "chimney" for the kitchen exhaust hood through the roof, and is preparing to mount the fan on top of it. In the kitchen, a shiny metal backsplash has been installed on the wall behind the range hood.

The door to the utility basement has been built.

Guy was nailing up a chair rail in the administrative offices. I'm told the walls in there will be two-tone with different colors above and below the rail. The counters for the restroom sinks have been installed. Almost all the interior doors are hung. Almost all the wall trim has been affixed.

Here and there are working lightbulbs, especially in places like the school offices which don't have direct windows to the outside.

Pictures later. Someone took his camera to the church today, leaving its battery in the charger at home.

Product placement

The front of the building just keeps getting closer to that "architect's rendering" we are so familiar with. On Friday, Bram had all the crossbeams up on the awning supports in front of the main entrance. And almost all of them were fastened down tight.

Larry finished putting up our "house number" on the front of the building.

Inside, Guy had pretty well finished installing baseboards all over the new part of the building. He was putting wall trim along the top of the partitions that extend into the entry hall from the kitchen and restrooms.

I was struck by how many different products it takes for the finish work, so I took photos of a few of them.

Our number is up, almost

Well, the first two numerals in our address are up on the front of the building. The other three sit, ready for painting, on a stack of privacy partitions that will be put in the restrooms.

Bram has been working on the awning crossbeams. He's moved them underneath the main beams and drilled the necessary holes for inserting the large lag screws that will connect the crossbeams to the two main beams.

Nearly out of sight, a crew is installing huge batts of insulation underneath all the floors, now that we are done running wires and pipes and ducts, oh my, under the building.

A couple of big pieces of sheet metal have been sitting outside on the north side of the building waiting for installation of the hood in the kitchen. That's now been done. The hood is a large one. The sheet metal ducts will carry airborne stuff from the stove out of the kitchen to a huge exhaust fan that will sit on the roof. Huge, large, big. Most of us could fit our kitchens inside this gear -- slight exaggeration.

Also awaiting installation between the second preschool classroom and classroom 3 is the folding partition that used to hang in the narthex. Folding or sliding walls of one sort or another will also be used between classrooms 3 and 4 and at the back of the sanctuary. Our new space will be very flexible, adapting to our needs.

The vinyl has been installed in the nursery bathroom/laundry, and the wall tile is all up in the women's restroom. Guy finished the last bit of grouting on the floor tile in the men's restroom, so the tile work is finished in there.

Painters will be busy inside the building most of next week and not much else will be going on inside. The week after that plumbers will be installing sinks and toilets and fountains. And within a couple of weeks all the electrical fixtures and carpeting and door knobs and dozens of other things will be finished.

Glazing over in the sanctuary

Some of the crossbeams went up for the entryway awning over the weekend. Several more still need to be raised, and some that are up need to be fully screwed down. Nonetheless, it is a very visible sign of progress.

Less visibly, on Monday Bill replaced the eight old cracked panes of glass in the hidden side windows behind the altar with new, clear glass. That finishes the glazing work in the sanctuary.

Most, but not all, of the interior doors are installed now. Many of them have been trimmed out with preprimed 1" by 4" (more or less) boards, which are ready to be prepped for painting.

Meanwhile, Warren continues laboring away on the tilework in the men's and women's restrooms. The work looks terrific.

Next, doors

Doors provided opportunity for photos on Friday, starting outside, with construction of the frame for the doors to the utility basement underneath the restrooms.

Inside Warren's brother, Guy, was installing the door frames and hanging the doors that had been delivered earlier in the week. In the photos below you will see a door for the main offices, which also has its trim in place, and a few feet of baseboard.

Other places with new doors by midday Friday included the main coat closet, the A/V closet in the sanctuary, the nursery, the school office, the preschool toilets and the fourth classroom.

Meanwhile, Warren and Coles continued work on tiling the men's and women's restrooms. Fascinated as I was by the little plastic doohickeys that kept the floor tiles from shifting while their cement set, it was up to Coles to remove them all.