Notice the stair cases and how elegant they are - they seem to "float" and are very different then what is now there, so we will keep that in mind when we design replacement stairs as the ones now are at the end of their lifetime. Look at the front doors as well - they are beautiful panel doors, and we hope to replace the current ones over time as well.
At this point in time we are not doing any structural work whatsoever. We are just stopping the decay and doing some maintenance. Since that work had to be done we are choosing to use new paint colors to give the church building a bit of a lighter feel.
One of the first things we did was to remove the handicapped access ramp. The wood of the ramp had rotted and the rot was starting to spread to the building itself. We got it just in time.
We started to remove the pews. Fortunately they were toe nailed into the floor so we did not cause much damage when removing them. If you look carefully on the right side you will see that a mark was left on the wainscoting where the pew was. We have an interesting way to deal with that which you will see below. We have saved several of the pews for re-installation later in other parts of the building. The majority were disassembled in such a way that we can re-use the wood in the building elsewhere over time. The back of the pews in particular are constructed in a similar way to the wainscoting and the nave ceiling. We were able to keep the backs together in one piece for re-use in most cases.
More pews have been removed and you can see in this picture what our plan is for some of the pew ends. they will go up against the marks in the wainscoting and look very nice when done. This was just a test, they were just laid against the wood to see how they would look. They were later removed because the next phase could have damaged them.
The pews are all gone in this view. They have all been put away safely on the Sunday School side so that we can work and not damage them. The carpets are all removed now and you can see a mark where the runners used to be in the aisle. At the back near the altar you can still see the light fixtures that were on the wall. They had to be removed due to the age of the wiring. The building is getting rewired and a new service. Barry tells me that the original wiring was installed in 1920 - it lasted almost 100 years - which shows you what a great job they did.
The exterior paint is in hard shape. Some of it literally flakes off when just touching it, and other parts are almost melted into the wood. The question was how difficult would it be to remove the paint. The obvious choice was to use pressure washing to remove it, but that would not allow us to really get to the wood under the paint and we would have to sand it anyhow after, so the decision was made to just sand it. We were not sure whether we would re-paint it or do something different, and this little test convinced us to do something different.
We did a test and quickly sanded off just a small section of clap board and put on some varithane varnish that I just had left over. We were very excited about the result. We liked seeing the seasoned wood, it would not be perfect - it had 100 years of hard work done, but it also took on a nice amber look to it. We knew that we would have to replace some of the clapboard with new pine and spruce (which is what it is now) but with a darker stain the difference is not very strong, and the new wood will age with weather as well. We tried several products and ultimately decided on a clear Benjamin Moore clear exterior stain which brought out the grain the most and added more red/amber color then the others tested. We know that stain does not have the life of paint, but by using a premium stain we are hoping for the best, and of course we can reapply stain easily when it becomes necessary.
On the inside work started on the plaster and paint. There was quite a bit of damage caused by leaks, and just age - but it could have been much worse and we are fortunate to have been able to save almost all of the original plaster. The red marks are a glue binder that is put where the old plaster cracks appeared. New plaster is applied in this area, then sanded down, and painted.
Here you can see the new plaster put in the cracks where the bond was. As this process went on, the nave became less and less green and more and more white. After this process the primer was applied.
Here you can see the first coat of primer has been put on, and the feeling is very different in the room. This is not the final color which will be a flat white with just a bit of yellow - again Benjamin Moore
The patchwork has been necessary because of wood rot - when some board work is necessary we move on to another section. The crew has also gotten better and faster at sanding now - and it is moving much faster.
We had to remove the one tree, but the other two will remain. The big tree was too close to the building and was causing the windows to be obscured as well as other problems. If you look at the steeple in this shot you can see some of the damage to the clap board done by the water running off of the roof in the valley and then coming straight down the building. We have already replaced some of the wood, but more will be required and we will need to consider this when we put the new roof on - we will need to put in a gutter of some sort so that the damage does not occur again.