Sunnyhill New Home

The major news of the week is that our parking lot has been paved, striped and is ready to use.

The work started with the removal of the old asphalt. In some areas the driveway was excavated down 10 inches to allow for more aggregate to be added.

Caruso also excavated the area where our four new parking spaces were to be added.

Once the aggregate was laid and rolled, paving began. In this photo you can see both the base and finish layers of asphalt and the finish coat of the north parking lot being rolled. 

Here the crew is putting the finish layer on the driveway to the garage. Because our dumpster is kept here, crews put down a stronger layer of aggregate before paving. Paving is hot work. When asphalt arrives on site, it is typically 300 degrees Fahrenheit. 

The paving machine, which has rollers that sit against the rear tires of the asphalt truck, literally pushes the truck ahead of it.

The driveway to the garage has just been finished. The wedge curbs on the left and right are placed and rolled by hand by skilled workers. The slope on the right, where the wall fell, is too steep to plant, so a shorter wall will be added and carpet juniper will be planted on the hill above it to hold the soil in place.

The day after the driveway was paved, we had a drenching rain. We were able to witness first hand how well the driveway drained into the new catch basin.

This photo was taken looking out the rear window of the infant/toddler room at about the same time. So much water runs off the low slope roof that it sheets like a waterfall. Gutters, as you can see, have yet to be installed. We hope that will occur this week.

Returning to the parking lot, you can see where wedge curbs have been added to provide boundaries for the gardens that will grace the front of the church. We have a lot of rock and detritus to remove from this area before, topsoil, mushroom manure, plants and mulch can be added. Margaret Hamstead and Beth Hedin will soon be recruiting gardeners to take on this task.

This photo shows the main drive, the south parking lot and the boundary to the garden on the south end of the new entrance pad. 

Because of heavy rain, the striping crew waited until Saturday morning to paint the lines on the parking lot. The machine in the photo is a line painter.

These are the parking spaces to the left and right of the main drive as you enter Sunnyhill, including the four new spaces on the left.

This is a better view of spaces to the right of the main driveway.

Our two handicapped parking spaces are left and right of the walkway into the north end of the new hallway into the building.

This photo was taken standing in front of the door to the church. 

In addition to the parking lot work, our AV supplier has been installing our WAN, connecting our Ethernet, installing speakers and focusing the lighting instruments that will illuminate the stage.

With the Internet now accessible via Ethernet and Wi-FI, we were able to move Roy into his new office. He still has more moving to do, but his new desk and file cabinets are in place, clean and ready to be used. This Tuesday, new furniture for Rev. Jim, Jennifer and Bethany will arrive and be installed into their new offices. We will also receive new cabinets to store the choir's music in the Carol Karl Choir Room.

Our exit lights have finally arrived and been installed.

All of the exit doors in the new building have floor level exit lights in addition to exit lights in the traditional locations. The fire inspector is due on Tuesday, and on Wednesday we hope to have a final inspection that will lead to us receiving our occupancy permit.

If you drive or walk past Sunnyhill, you will see that we have place our magnetic sign on the front lawn with the word TEST and the number 6 -- the letters are 6 inches tall. (Letters on our old north sign are 4 1/2" tall, which seems quite adequate.) We want to make sure our new electronic sign is in the perfect location. It needs to be placed close enough to the main entrance for people to see it and turn in in time. At the same time, we need to be sure that the sign is not blocked by a tree for people coming from the south. The sign must be 10 feet from our property line, which is approximately 2 feet from the sidewalk. When the new sign is installed, we will have to remove our two old signs. We are only permitted to have one sign.

This week at Sunnyhill, we hope to have the gutters, leaders and snow holders installed on the roof and the misshapen shingles replaced. Our HVAC sub-contractor will continue to work on balancing and testing the system. The AV contractor will finish installing the data and sound equipment. The painter will put a final coat on the door and continue to touch up problem paint areas. 

We had hoped to begin landscaping this week, but we can't landscape until the gutters and leaders are in place. The water pouring off the roof would destroy much of the landscaping by washing away topsoil and seed. If you look at the hill behind the infant/toddler room, you can see that the fines have been washed down the hill by the force of the water coming off the roof. For now, landscaping is on hold.

As a congregation, we have a long list of things to get done. We hope to finalize that list at our construction team meeting on Tuesday and begin to recruit members to get those jobs done. Currently much of congregational work is being done by a cadre of retirees, but we hope to be able to schedule work on Saturdays to give everyone a chance to participate.