November 20 - The Beginning and an End

November 19, the First Sunday Service -
Someone with calendaring skills noted that it was sixteen months and a few days ago that the work started. This work was not cutting hay as had previously been done here. Rather it was eliminating the hay field and turning it into a church yard. Now, sixteen months and a few days later, that building is first able to be used for its intended purpose.

Sunday school, starting at 9:15,  claimed the distinction of being the first activity in the new building. In the dining room there was a class at every table. This photo demonstrates again that it is never a good idea to take pictures through the glass door with reflections.

 Five additional classes were held in the sanctuary.

By the start of the 10:30 service the sanctuary was full. The audience included many visitors from neighboring congregations that came to help us celebrate this special moment.

Markus Lohi preached the sermon using Psalm  122 as his text. That Psalm begins, "Let us go into the house of the LORD" which seems a most fitting text for the occasion.

At the conclusion of the service, the congregation stood to sing hymn  #353. (Let your imagination loose here and open your virtual ears.) The house is full of people with joyful hearts. The song words are splashed on the front wall. The room with its abundance of hard surfaces reverberates with the sound from our beautiful, powerful, gee-whiz virtual organ. The song then erupts, "To our blest Creator thankful praises flow."
I suspect that more than a few in attendance joined me in struggling a bit to read the words through the tears of joy.

It has arrived. The day is really here. Our church, the labor of sixteen months and a few days. is now available for use as a church and not just a building project. Thanks be to God.

The Chronicler Fadeth -
Sixteen months and a few more days ago, I was asked to take pictures so we would have a photographic history of the building project. Being old and considered hazardous with tools, it seemed a good way for me to participate. A short while later, once the work started, I was asked how the congregation would be able to follow my picture history. I did not have an answer for that but someone suggested a blog. I was totally ignorant about blogs. Someone suggested Blogger. I did about four minutes or so of intense study and started this blog.
While the church is not totally complete, lacking a working kitchen for example, it is nonetheless available for services and other congregation activities. Sam announced at the end of the service that the work crews are being disbanded. So it seems that this may be a good time to discontinue regular updates of this blog. Now as the folks depart from the church, I bid you adieu and gently fade away.

To those who have followed along, thank you. I have enjoyed your company. A special thanks to those few brave souls that added comments to the blog. It was nice to hear from you.

A Post Script to Follow -
I asked the project leaders who have borne the heaviest loads during the planning and building of the church if they would like to add their thoughts. It seems appropriate to do this. They have promised to send something so I can share it with you. So, stay tuned for one more post. I am pleased to give these leaders the last word here.

November 18 - Today the End, Tomorrow the Beginning

Mistaken Identity -
Even though the chronicler had hoped for proper identification, it turns out that the young lady in the picture is Kathryn, not Sarah. If the sisters switch names, of course, the chronicler would be spared this embarrassment.









Max Occupancy -
On Thursday evening I noticed a new sign over the sanctuary door. (I wondered, did dear old Max really live to nearly 300?)

And this sign over the dining room door. It seems that in the event of a capacity crowd, the last 92 folks won't be able to get in for coffee. The signs are on the inside of the rooms. Wouldn't it make more sense to have them outside the room to prevent overcrowding?

I also noted that Don finished his furniture assembly. The mother's room looks rather comfortable. I wonder if it will be at max capacity even if there are no children in the room.

Another big change on Thursday. A bunch of chairs were stacked up in the dining room. I suppose there are  207 chairs.














Other Thursday Activities - 

Wayne was busy putting ends on cables back in the control room. All the wires Tim and Adrian pulled through pipes require plugs attached, and Wayne was the designated solderer. Here, as with so many things in life, all is well that ends well.

 Matt was busy hanging paper towel dispensers in the restrooms.

Sam joined the fitters to test the flow from the boiler through the tubing in the floor that will keep our toes toasty warm this winter.

Brian and Sam went around to the several manifolds, burping the tubing to get the air out of the lines, thereby insuring circulation through all of the many segments. The pretty pink liquid in the pail is what flows through the tubing. This heated liquid also circulates through the water heater providing the calories to heat the water at the sinks.

The Real Virtual Organ -

Randy the organ guy obviously finished setting up  the organ. I am sure of this since he was not sitting on the organ bench on Saturday morning, as he had been on my previous three visits to the building.

 I discovered that while the console in the sanctuary is pretty and looks like an organ, the real virtual organ is in the furnace room behind the console. It is the black box in the picture. I take great consolation from this picture. Mrs. Chronicler is often on my case about the messy cables running amok around my computers, but mine are still neater than those shown here. I suspect this tangle of cords will be straightened out now that the organ is installed and the sound system cabling is in place, but I intend to keep a copy of this photo to console myself and my wife in the future.









Two Last Day Installs - 

Saturday was designated as final cleanup day before our first service on Sunday morning. However, a couple of items remained to be installed and connected on Saturday. The speakers in the front of the church and the projector hanging from the ceiling. Here Tim is working on the speaker mounts.

Sam's son, whose name I cannot now remember and am too wary to hazard guess considering my faultering memory, ascends to the top of a tall ladder to grab the cable Tim pushes down from the attic, which cable is needed to project the song words on the front wall. An important job that needs to be completed before the first service.














Saturday Cleanup -

Cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning. Remaining construction dust, acres of window glass with finger prints and assorted smudges, masking tape left from varnishing along with miscellaneous debris outside all need to get tidied up for the start of services on Sunday.

Jean is going to great heights to wash the windows. Tall windows are really nice since they allow a lot of light into the building. The height is a bit of a disadvantage for washing, however.

Brent and his son are cleaning up the sink in the men's room.

Elias uses the high tech soap dispensing machine to get the right flavored water for his cleaning task.

Thomas vacuums the pulpit area.

Charles demonstrates his ability to handle two mops simultaneously. That task seems reasonable given that he has two hands.

Don and son Levi need two hands to cope with one mop each as they team up to clean the dining room floor.

Workers zealously protect their completed tasks, keeping messer-uppers out of the already clean room.

Outside Brent and his cadre of employees attack the accumulated trash around the property. Tomorrow, finally it seems, tomorrow, the day arrives that we have so longed for and worked for, when we begin using our church for its intended purpose.

November 15 - The Sprint to the Finish Line

A Thousand Details, Big and Small -
It was reported by a reliable source, Sam, that the inspector approved a certificate of occupancy today. Now we can hold services in the new church next Sunday, the 19th of November. However, before that time arrives, there are many details demanding attention.

Like the Organ -
Randy Moe, the organ guy, has been working diligently to get our gee-whiz, all electric virtual organ up and running. The organ is lacking actual pipes so it makes do with virtual pipes. I can't tell which of these circuit boards, or which wires will generate the virtual 16' pipe, but surely he knows and will get this maze of wires and boards correctly communicating to generate organ sounds.

 The computer based organ has a monitor at the console, perhaps allowing the organist to check email when not playing. It uses touch screen technology, but the computer was being a bit touchy last evening and was being unresponsive to the touch. Just one more wrinkle to be ironed out.

The software that does the work is called 'Virtual Pipe Organ'. Apparently it still requires real, skilled fingers pressing on real keys to make real music, even on a virtual pipe organ.












Making Connections for Water, Air and Electricity -

The plumbing is all connected and has passed inspection. Water is now getting everywhere it is supposed to. Sam discovered that the water from the fountain was also getting to places not required, like the floor. So Sam the carpenter turned plumber was fixing the drain line to keep the water in its place. I am not sure how often the green bucket requires emptying.

Greg was hanging out in one mechanical room hooking up the washer and dryer. He did not have to be concerned with getting water in or out as that was already in place. He needed to get the dryer to exhaust itself outside the building.

In the men's restroom Phil was connecting partitions to the ceiling and wall. Dave is painting the newly installed partition. Brian is trimming insulation for his hot water pipes in the boiler room next door. Details, more details.

The electrical system passed inspection but the inspector did not install light bulbs and shades. So Eric has to attend these details.





















Adrian, assisted by Tristan, is pushing a thick bundle of wires through a small pipe without  success. Actually Tim is on the other end of the pipe pulling on a nylon cord that resists staying connected to the bundle of wires. But the workers are persistent and after several aborted efforts did eventually succeed.

It turns out that was not the end of the journey for the wires in question. They also had to make another trip to the control room, the furnace room where Adrian stands being only an intermediate transit point. The chronicler departed the premises before the final run was completed but the pipe to the control room is substantially larger so I am certain that the trip was made successfully.

Wayne and his daughter Sarah (I hope the name is correct) are soldering the connectors for the pulpit microphones.














Bill is not content to leave the front wall intact. He feels compelled to beat a hole in the drywall and then enlarge it with a saw. He manages this task with alacrity.

It seems a hole is needed for a place in which to mount the speaker Tim is holding. It takes one man to make the hole and seven to figure out how to fill it up. After the speaker is mounted and connected, the hole must be again covered up.













Aaron is checking out the technology for displaying song words on the wall for congregation singing. This will be necessary assuming the organ guy and the wiring folks get all their connections made correctly.

Meanwhile, in the Dining Room -
The garage sale is over, at least in this location. The sweepers are attacking with vigor and all the miscellany on the floor must leave. Brenda, Val and Merja analyze the situation.

After a bit of time, the inventory was gone and the dust was being swept up, leaving a clean, bare floor in its stead.

Getting the floor tidied up was good since the choir needed to practice. Ben leads from the piano. The building acoustics are excellent for music and the choir sounded great.









A Final Thought for the Day -

Some time ago one of the workers was chirping a little ditty that went something like this -
"putty and paint, putty and paint, make a carpenter what he ain't." I assume it was a painter and not a carpenter, but I am not certain of that.
Boss Bob is an excellent carpenter and does not rely on putty and paint to make his stuff look good, so he chuckled when he heard the rhyme. He is, however, an inveterate punster, rarely missing an opportunity to play with a word. It is not surprising, then, when something screwy comes out of his mouth.

November 11 - Every Day the End Draws Closer

Bob Does Ballet - 
As he trims doorways and hangs assorted hardware stuff, Bob frequently finds himself at top of doorway height. Once there it is time to demonstrate his ballet skills.

First one way then the other. Having never done doorway trimming, I am not sure of the relevance of this performance, especially considering he has no tools in hand. Perhaps it is part of the physical fitness program.

 On Saturday he moved to the other side of the doorway, mounting hardware high on the door.

This time he has both tools and a mouthful of screws.

 Time to Get Down to Work - 
The time comes when socializing ends and it is time to get down to work. In this case, literally down to work.

Loren crawls under the bench to anchor the final pew to the floor.

Becky gets her knees dirty puttying nail holes in the baseboard.

Tom figures crawling on hands and knees is going by half-measures. If you are getting down, get all the way down. I think he was doing something with weather strip on the bottom of the doors, but I do not understand the roll of the masking tape in that operation. For me, just one more construction mystery.


Furniture - 
Construction must be close to complete. Attention is now being given to necessary furnishings. The pulpit will not be ready for the anticipated first service on the nineteenth so Ikea's finest furniture will be put into service. Janelle and Jodie admire the table and chairs that will be deployed to the front of the church to serve as a temporary pulpit until the real-deal one is built.

Don, who assembled the table, moved on to the mother's room where he is assembling a chair. Still to come are the stuffed chair and sofa still in the boxes behind him.

Thursday evening Adrian and son Tristan carried in tables from the three pallets that were dropped in the parking lot near the side door. One pallet had boxes that showed some rough treatment so a couple of boxes were opened to check for damage. While the box wore some wrinkles, the enclosed table appeared to be in good shape.




Plumbing Fixtures - 

In the previous post, I noted that drinking fountains and toilets were installed. Now bathroom sinks have also been added. But, alas, the outhouse is still a necessary feature since none of these plumbing fixtures have water connected. Notice, however, the armed toilet paper dispenser installed on the partition wall. Can running water be far away?

Other stall partitions are on site, but stored in the kitchen. I trust they will be installed in the rest rooms.
















Thermostats - 
We have furnaces so we need thermostats. Sam and Eric are connecting the control equipment to the furnaces. I trust that these two know their way through the maze of wires in and around these hot air  producers.

No such concern for the actual thermostats since the only wire there is for power. Temperature sensors around the building use wireless communication technology to send their data to the thermostats Sam is programming. The thermostats, in turn, send their warmer and/or cooler wireless requests to the control boxes mounted on the furnaces. Admittedly, this eliminates a possible confusion of wires, but likely requires tech savvy folks to set up and trouble shoot any future problems. I asked if this was the ubiquitous Bluetooth. Eric told me it is not, rather it is Honeywell's Redline. So, color coded wires are exchanged for color coded wireless signals.

 Electrician Phil is digging into electrical panels to connect power to various devices that require electricity.

With all this talk about heating and power, I got a bit concerned the other evening when I peeked into the boiler room and observed Mark the boiler guy standing with his ears plugged. I decided that the peril could not be too great if that was the only precaution he was taking. Plugged ears, for instance, would not provide much protection from an exploding boiler.












Patching and Painting - 
All the walls require painting, then coating a second time, then touch up patching is applied where necessary and eventually, the final coat of paint is applied.

On an earlier evening, Peter painter was doing touch up patching the sanctuary walls. Watching him work  brought me back to my youth. My father used a appraisal company, Patchin Appraisals, for his business. As I recall, the founder of that business was a man named Peter Patchin. All at once this recollection came to me as I watched Peter patching.

Dave is applying either the first coat, the second coat or some other coat to the dining room walls. I remember the Bible story of Joseph and his coat of many colors which stands in contrast to this painting job which has many coats of one color.

Meanwhile, In the Chancel -

Sam is not content to see the new floor stay solid. He thinks it needs a few holes.




















Naturally, once you have a hole, you have to stick your arm in it. Sam's boys Leo and Noah look on with great concern, wondering if dad will get his arm back.

 Happily he does. His arm is eventually replaced by an electrical box that will provide power at the pulpit.















Handicap Parking - 

The parking lot has appropriately marked handicap parking spaces. The required signs on posts are still to be added. One visitor to the church could not wait for the official signs to test out the parking space. I did not see the required permission sign on the vehicle.