It's a Jigsaw Puzzle

A few weeks ago my wife, Anita, and I enjoyed a visit by the grandkids, Serena & Noah, and their mother Ricky. They stayed with us for a week. Most mornings I would walk into the living room and find Serena, age 8, on the floor huddled over a jigsaw puzzle of a “Fantasy World” filled with castles & towers & dolphins and boats.
I hate jigsaw puzzles but since this was Serena, and I love her so, I would flop-down and laboriously dig through the pile of indiscernible puzzle pieces. We made great progress during that week but the puzzle remained unfinished when it came time for Serena and her family to leave. We’ll finish the puzzle during a future visit.

This building project is a lot like that jigsaw puzzle. Our fifty-page roll of plans is like a jumbled box of pieces that must be carefully assembled. I’m happy to report that the pieces of our puzzle are coming together quite nicely. We’re not quite as far along as Serena and I got with the “Fantasy World” but I would say that we are well past halfway.

Here’s where we are with Parish Hall. The rough-in wiring is complete. The sheet metal ducting is complete. Rough-in plumbing is complete. All framing is complete. All walls & ceilings have been insulated. (The floors will be soon.) Almost all walls have been patched and plastered. The offices & workroom have been painted. The wood floors in the offices, hallways & workroom have been repaired and sanded and staining will begin on Monday. Interior colors for Parish Hall have been determined and painting will begin next week. Tile work in the bathrooms should begin in about one week. The A/V infrastructure is in place. I would say that the Parish hall is sort of like that easy part of a jigsaw puzzle with all of the distinctive features that are quickly recognizable.

The courtyard is another matter. It’s kind of like the ocean areas in Serena’s “Fantasy World”… large areas of indistinguishable blue. To complicate matters more, we’ve discovered that some pieces are missing and others simply do not quite fit together as they should. We are still determinedly moving ahead but with a lot more “head scratching” and searching for answers. There’s been lots of formwork this week. Formwork is the process of building wooden walls, supported by stakes pounded into the ground, which hold poured concrete in a particular shape or “form”. Once the liquid concrete hardens the wooden forms are removed and you are left with a concrete structure or pad. The big news this week is that the forms are up for the walls of the basement area below the Terrace. The reason this is big news is that finally we are seeing a structure emerge from the ever-moving mounds of dirt. Of course, the difficulty with pouring concrete is that once it hardens there is no going back. If some conduit or pipe or drain was missed, then you’ve got a whole lot of trouble on your hands. Added to this is the intermingling of several building disciplines and overlapping sets of plans. Sometimes it’s just darned hard to find the right piece to complete a certain section of our puzzle.

Did I mention that I hate jigsaw puzzles? I also really love this place.

Let's Talk Concrete

When I drove up to the Unitarian Society on Monday morning, four cement trucks were parked along Santa Barbara Street, diesel engines idling, waiting their turn to feed the foundation footing forms of our new terrace and storage area. 28 yards of concrete was poured that morning and from the street I couldn't see where it went. It was like it simply disappeared into a hole. Which essentially is was happened. We will be tending to those holes filled with concrete (footings) in the coming weeks and our structures should rise up like flowers in a garden, with the addition of much more re-bar, concrete and sweat.

Over the past few weeks Schipper Construction and Anacapa Concrete Co. have been strategically digging holes & trenches and filling them with re-bar and concrete all over the back corner of our future Jefferson Courtyard and Terrace. It began with a pretty technical process called "slotted underpinning". This process was required in order to extend one corner of the foundation of the Sanctuary down to the level of the basement below our new terrace....without causing the Sanctuary to "droop" downward. Instead of digging-out the entire area below that corner, only a few carefully spaced 6' wide holes were dug at one time. These were then surrounded by forms, filled with a maze of re-bar and filled with concrete. A few days later, after the concrete was hard, adjacent holes were dug, formed and filled with concrete. This process was repeated until one continuous wall of interconnected concrete sections "underpinned" the sanctuary foundation. Our sanctuary foundation is actually stronger than ever as a result.

In the coming weeks we should see walkways, stairways and retaining walls materializing throughout the lower campus. We are definitely building for the ages, with the help of a lot of concrete.

Colors for Parish hall

In the midst of all of this messy construction, we are actively envisioning what the finished Parish hall will look like, or perhaps I should say "feel like". Creating a wonderful "feeling" inside the hall is largely dependant upon our choice of colors and finishes. It's one thing to choose color for your home's living room walls. Dealing with a space as large and complicated as Parish Hall is a far more daunting task. It requires a high level of skill, artistic sensibility and experience. I have never been a fan of the current Parish hall colors. I believe those colors were recommended by a budget-priced painting contractor. It shows.

I am thrilled with the design team we have working on the Parish hall interior finishes. It is being lead by Suzanne Fairley-Green, a highly accomplished interior designer, and Ellen Rockne, whose work in our parsonage and her new home are absolutely stunning. We also are getting advice from Alex Cole, an extraordinary architectural historian. Alex, Ellen & Suzanne are all members of USSB and are generously donating their services to our project. They are being assisted by April Palencia, our project architect, who, in addition to a thorough understanding of color, has a wealth of knowledge about other finishes, materials and fixtures.

Say goodbye to that grey-blue trim and peach accent. We're entering a whole new era.