Every morning when I arrive at my office under the tower the first thing I do is crank open the windows and experience a soft cool breeze. Without fail that breeze always flows through the office. I can depend on it. The same cannot be said of most everything else. When I flip the light switch the lights may or may not come on. When I send an e-mail there's a 50/50 chance that I'll be connected to the internet. Opening a water faucet in the kitchen is a crap shoot. And, even if I get running water, this may be followed by loud cursing from a large, angry plumber working on a disconnected sewer line below the kitchen floor. And the telephones....don't get me started!
Well, I guess that's life in a construction zone. The work is going well and things are progressing very quickly. The Jefferson Courtyard area has been completely excavated, leveled and compacted. Several large boulders were uncovered and removed. Two car-sized boulders were simply too large to move but luckily sit about 12" below our finished concrete and lawn level. The large boulder which served as our focal point at the ground breaking ceremony has been saved and moved to the children's area near Classroom C. The next step in the Jefferson Courtyard is trenching for our storm water dispersal tanks and all utilites and conduit. We'll cross our fingers about further boulder discoveries.
Most demolition work is complete in Parish Hall and the Blake bathrooms. The walls of the new Parish bathrooms have been framed-in. (The bathrooms look huge!) New plumbing vent & drain lines are being installed. The new workroom area is framed as well. Lowering the floor area at the library and former minister's office is proceeding more slowly. This is a very complicated building puzzle that requires lots of engineering & re-engineering, new foundation walls, concrete slabs and sophisticated anchoring hardware. It's gratifying to see how Schipper Construction re-uses and saves lots of the demoed structural timber when possible.
Electrical re-wiring of an entire building is quite an undertaking! Cook Electric has been here for two weeks cutting holes in the Parish Hall plaster walls, tearing out the old wires and running new flex conduit. They will continue with this throughout the month of July. (Note: my power has gone out twice while writing this blog. Thank god for battery powered outlet back-up.)
Next week we begin bulding forms for the concrete retaining walls and underpinning required to transition from the sanctuary to the new Jefferson Courtyard elevation. That should be very fun to watch. Meanwhile we deal with all the minor headaches that are inevitable with any sizeable construction project. Two days ago one of the large trees behind our Parsonage House split causing two large trunks to collaspe onto our construction trailer roof. We've also cut into shallow gas lines and hidden active water lines.
I never know what to expect each day when I arrive here, but at least I can depend on that breeze when I open the windows.
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