Wednesday, April 16...

With Easter services this weekend, we did not have Wednesday night bible class.   I decided to pop in at the church to see what was going on.  I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of people that came to work!  In fact, it made my week.  Before this, I had been hashing out ways to get people motivated about the project again.  (not that I would have anyway of motivating people)

Preparing to dig a trench to connect gas to the building, via pipe.

Timmy was the trench digger.

Mitt was his helper, and getting some instruction on something.

Putting up fascia on the covered stairway.

Waiting for instruction to help.

At the same time, the plumbers were threading pipe for the gas line into the boiler.

The covered stairway into the basement.

Putting in flashing (think that's what it's called) along the base of the building.

A few boys were at the church with their dads.  

Orangy covering his ears.  Apparently it was quite loud for him. :) So cute, makes me crazy!

I was easily distracted by these boys.  Such cute subjects!

Mitt told me, he's a government worker. :-)  Sorry if that offends anyone.  Just struck my funny bone as he was leaning on his shovel pretending to be busy.

Tim and Mitt worked on digging this trench all evening.  

One scenery shot for you.

Building sites are the perfect spot for entertaining boys!

Taping, mudding and texturing is finished!   Next step is trim and then paint.  Wow, we are getting so close!!

I like shadows.  I know, call me weird! :)

I was the only one in the building while taking these pictures.  I started whistling, it was so pretty!  Not my whistling, but the sound!  It just carried and bounced off the ceilings and walls.   I got the chills and a few tears thinking of the first time we will be there, everyone together singing. And how beautiful that sound will be!  

A part of the manifold.

Working on connecting pipes to the boiler.

Working at dusk to finish digging the trench.  

There was also a few guys up at Bud and Joan's working on the pews.   It was awesome seeing such a large crew show up for work!!  It has been quite frustrating for some knowing there is so much work that can be done, then having only a few guys show up.   With support from us wives and a little encouragement to our husbands, we can get this project done a whole lot sooner!  

Thursday, April 10...

A beautiful evening at the church!   

There were a few guys working outside, and a couple downstairs in the mechanical room.

These guys were sheeting the roof of the new covered stairway into the basement.

There has been a few different times I have been at the church when an out of town guest has been putting in some hours!  It's quite touching how people are willing to help out on our project.

Playing in the field of weeds.

We hired out most of the sheet rock, all of the taping, mudding and texturing.

Here one of the hired guys was texturing.  The church was very warm and humid and smelly.  

Part of the building that is finished with mud and tape.

For those of you that think plumbers are simply people who unclog toilets and drains, you're wrong. :-)  They actually have to be quite artistic!  Here they are designing and building a manifold for the boiler.

It's really quite interesting to watch!

Soldering pipes together.

Fitting pipes together.

I wasn't the only one who thought it interesting to watch!

Playing on the roof.

The majority of the outside is painted, and looks so nice.

Folks come and check out progress here and there.

Cute baby, quite petrified of the large lens shoved in his face!

I took a million sunset pictures, sorry!  

How can you not, when the clouds change color every minute?!

Silt sunsets are amazing!

Still mudding and texturing.

After stopping at the church, I made my way up to Bud and Joan's.   (They live maybe 1/2 mile from the church).  We bought church pews from somewhere in Phoenix.  They were a pretty decent deal, just need some work.  Bud and Joan graciously opened up there shop for storage and work space.  One side of the shop is the sanding and cutting area.  The other side it for staining and finishing.

Here they are working on the benches.  Anywhere from big hunks of wood, to small little itty bitty strands need sanding or cut.

Someone's enjoying this tedious work!

If you run out of room on the tables, the floor works just as good.

The professionals discussing stain technique.

Looks like Brian's got it figured out. :-)

Love this!  Not sure what was so funny?  Or maybe the fumes from the stain were getting to Dave?! :)

The next morning was a Saturday, and I swung back over to the church to get more action photos.  It was very quiet.  So, I took a few more boiler project pictures. And this of my darling nephew!

The manifold in progress.

The mechanical room is starting to fill up some.

A few more pictures of the church with texturing still going on.

The hired guys finished texturing either this day or a day or 2 later.  They did great work!

The North side is finished. 

Loving our spring days!

The inside of the covered stairway.

Just wanted to wish all of you a happy spring!  Especially those of you in MN and MI. :-)

Hopefully within a couple months the project will be complete!  It seems as it gets closer, the motivation to get there is less!  Crew sizes seem to have shrunk?!  We maybe need an energy boost to keep the enthusiasm going?  Not sure!  

Regardless, it's still very exciting to see progress!