December 1 - Curiosities of the Building

Mechanical Rooms - 
There are two upstairs mechanical rooms in our one story church building. They are sneaked into the trusses among all the 2x4 braces. Comfortable spaces nestled in the upper reaches of the building that will eventually be the home of furnaces or boilers and perhaps other items. When the first trusses were going up you could see the big open square in the middle of the trusses. Trusses installed after the room was full sized had cross bracing and were no longer open.
Trusses over the back side bump out had similar openings in the center, forming the framing for the other room which is over the restrooms. In this picture Lars Keplinger is standing on a truss over the room.

The backside room can be seen from the outside beyond the gable end truss. Also visible in this photo is the extra piggy back truss. Anybody wanna buy a perfectly good, never been used truss?
Using the space in this way makes a lot of sense. The space under the gable roof can either be used for mechanical rooms or bracing.

Brent Huhta has spent a lot of time working in, around and through the trusses surrounding these rooms. It rather seems like his personal project. I wonder if he is building his personal retreat up in the attic of the building.

Here he is shown adding bracing in the area, all the while making sure that the bracing does not interfere with the space required by the easy chair and sofa.

Last Saturday he allowed as how he was very busy building a deck in the upper reaches, well out of sight of the general assembly. I have not seen the finished area but he claimed to be making a catwalk that will allow him to silently slip from one room to the other should a rapid exit be necessary. A catwalk seems like a very good addition, given all the previously installed rat runs.

 These two pictures show the access doors to Brent's private quarters. The ladder shown in the left photo is temporary. I believe a much more sophisticated arrangement is planned, one that will be less visible and drop out of the ceiling on command.

Once up in the high altitudes, a doorway presents itself, which passes into Brent's soon-to-be well furnished abode.









Brent was still allowing visitors to view his space on Saturday, at least up until lunch time. I did get a picture looking down from the heights before the drywall installers finished sealing up the ceiling.

 Dave and Bill finished installing the drywall that completely hid Brent's hideout from view.

Calvin Wuollet is seen coming down the escape ladder. He may have been one of the last allowed to view the private quarters. I am not sure of this but it may be so.