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.