Sunnyhill New Home

This blog has been silent over the past few weeks. But now there is news to report.

On Saturday, July 8, we had an important inside/outside work party. Inside we moved a lot of furniture from where it had been temporarily stored to where it will be used in the old and new spaces. We built and filled shelves, hauled no-longer-needed items to Construction Junction, packed 13 boxes of books to go to the book cellar, performed handy-person task and hauled trash to the dumpster. Outside we cleared gravel and construction debris from the areas in front of the church that will become planting beds. That will probably be the last all-hands work party before our first service in our new space. Going forward, we will need smaller groups to accomplish important tasks, which we will publicize in the Beat. What we did was hard work, in some cases very hard manual labor. Pitching in to get it done were: Jim Carter, Charlie Cook, Bill Cook, Patti Cook, Peg Hart, Scott Smith, Margaret Hamstead, Dean Hazelton, Beth Hedin, Jim Heltman, John Hemington, Carilee Hemington, Michael Hennessy, Alan James, Judy Kelly, Franziska Lang, Will Page, Annelee Page, Bob Lauver, Jim Magaw, Ella Magaw, Jennifer McGlothin, Dennis Sweeney, Jay Thornton, Bethany Thornton, Stella Thornton, Aiden Thornton, Finn Thornton, Henry Thornton (who became my right-hand man and was up to any challenge), Ed Tomlinson, John Vernacchia, and Judy Armstrong. Special thanks to Carol Wooten for the cookies which provided much needed sustenance. The week before, Judy Kelly, Erin Russell-Story, Dan Story and Jim Heltman painted the entry foyer so it was ready to receive furniture. And, over a period of several days, Carol Karl and Mary Pratt organized choir music that had been kept in several locations in the new files in the choir room, and now it is all together.Thank you to all; I apologize if I missed anyone or misspelled a name.

As we enter the final stages of construction, craft work has slowed down and, in some cases, been delayed. We have also assumed more responsibility for completing our new home. Those responsibilities include landscaping, patching and painting our historical building and moving everything either into new spaces or back into old spaces. More on that and how we can all help later.

Construction delays have affected our ability to move forward with some our work. We were supposed to start landscaping earlier this month, but we cannot do any landscaping until the gutters and downspouts have been installed. Without gutters channeling storm water from our roof into our new storm water containment system, our landscaping would be ruined. We've had a lot of precipitation -- we are up 4.42 inches for the year and 1.33 inches for the month of July, which is only half over. The unusual construction of our roof further complicates the matter of rain. Imagine portions of two very large sloped roofs -- the roof over the new sanctuary and the roof over the fellowship hall -- feeding into the low sloped roof over the new infant-toddler room. Il pleuvait à torrent. And the torrent would wash away the topsoil and seed, as you can see in this video.

So, why has the installation of the gutters and downspouts been delayed? Here's why in a nutshell. The half-round gutters we selected to match (as closely as possible) the existing gutters were not available in the gauge and color we needed, so they had to be specially ordered. They have taken months to arrive. The good news is that they are finally on site.

Our new gutters and leaders sit in the area that Margaret Hamstead and Beth Hedin will soon turn into a garden. Under the blue tarp in the background is the topsoil for the new lawn. The deceptively green area is opportunistic crabgrass. The gutters will be going up this week, and then landscaping will begin.

Inside the church, the lighting and most of the AV equipment have been installed. One of the stage lights had a bad control module, and will be replaced once the new module arrives. If you look closely you can see two microphones hanging above the stage. These mics will allow us to record the services and will feed the speakers in the crying room and the choir room. The next time a photo from this angle is published on our blog, you will see two large screen monitors on the walls behind the stage, a grand piano stage left and perhaps the backs of our new chairs.

Giffin, the company providing our finish carpentry, returned last week and installed this window seat in the infant-toddler room...

...which will be used for storage and to hide the pipe to the hose bib on the exterior wall.

This bench hides the pipe to the exterior hose bib that runs through the crying room...

...and this bench in Roy's office hides another pipe to a hose bib. In all, we have three new hose bibs which will be employed very soon to sprinkle our new grass unless the rain continues. I expect a sudden dry spell. On the wall you can see the key box. This was the first item we -- members of the congregation -- attached anything to our new walls. Drilling into them was nerve wracking.

Giffin also added oak paneling around the new windows in the entrance foyer. These windows used to be doors. The door on the left was to the corridor in the old north wing and the door to the right was the door to the coat/storage/junk closet. The paneling ties in with the historical building, while...

...the other side matches the look of our new addition.

Turning to the work that the congregation is doing -- the choir room has been set up and is in use. Carol Karl and Mary Pratt have spent several days organizing music in the new file cabinets.

A view of the choir room from another angle shows a bookcase, which still needs to be secured to the wall, that will hold RE materials. RE teachers, perhaps with the help of choir members, will make the switch from choir room to classroom after Sunday rehearsal is over so the room is ready for children when we sing them out.

Jen has been hard at work getting the basement ready for RE classes. Our new RE library was a hallway, vault and closet that were combined. The books were organized with the help of some members of the youth group.

But there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, and Jen could use a hand. Please give her a call and volunteer to put our RE spaces back together. The bookcases in the background, now Sunnyhill T-shirt blue, once held books for the Sweeneys in Upper St. Clair. You can't see them in this photo, but the radiators need to be painted, if anyone is looking for an easy way to help.

This room has been know as the fish-tank room, the rainbow room and most recently the polka dot room for the 70s era polka dots found painted on the wall. Those polka dots and a lot of new and old piping are now concealed by a wall being built by Michael Hennessy. This wall will soon be covered with a mural painted by Claire Pullen before she heads off to college. (Sunnyhill will miss her.) I expect a new name for the room will be derived from that mural. There are three other walls in this room and another shabby looking radiator that need to be painted. Please let us know if you can help. This is our shabbiest RE space, and we are doing all we can to make it comfortable for our children.

Here's something you are unlikely to ever see again -- master craftsman Dennis Sweeney assembling IKEA furniture in the infant-toddler room. There's not a dovetail joint to be seen.

A master IKEA shopper, Jen also found inexpensive items to soften up the crying room.

She also added vinyl cutouts to cheer up the infant-toddler room. Wait until you see the lighted cloud and the birdhouse clock.

We've added vinyl tile to our new storage rooms...

And filled one of them with tables new and old. The tables on the far left are our 16 new 8' plastic tables. They will accommodate up to 160 people banquet style.

Ed Tomlinson, who has become a regular in our small work group, helped install the new monitor that will serve as our message board. Picture Bethany on Sundays sitting at a table below the sign welcoming new visitors. 

In the Fellowship Hall, Ed and the blogger also installed new switches and dimmers that work with LED lights ...

...and replaced the halogen and CFL lamps with dimmable LED bulbs designed to function in a fully enclosed fixture.

After searching several local stores, we had to go online to find lamps that could be used in fully enclosed fixtures. If they live up to their potential, no one will have to replace them for 20 years or more -- ha! (When that time comes, I'll be 93, so I'll need someone to hold the ladder.)

We also upgraded the newly painted entrance foyer to LED lights and replaced the switches. We eliminated three switches that did nothing and covered the holes in the switch plates with blanks. The most surprising change was a switch with a bracket that kept it from being turned off and the label, "always on." When Ed removed the switch plate, he discovered that the switch was wired to -- nothing.

The new cover plates are like pearls with a black dress.

We've also added the new capacity signs provided by Mt. Lebanon Fire Department. Seating capacity in the new Sanctuary is 220 people. That includes people on the stage.

Seating capacity in the Fellowship Hall remains the same, 128 people.

Moving back outside, the new photo electric exit light warms up the facade at night.

With all the use as a security light overnight, one of our parking lot lights has burned out. This will have to be replaced, and if we're lucky, we can find a more efficient LED light to substitute for the sodium vapor lamp that no longer works.

Finally, here are three of the four members of Sunnyhill's newest rock group displaying the flagstone that Margaret and Beth will use to create paths in the front garden. Piled behind us is about one ton of stone that took three trips in Michael Hennessy's truck to bring from the work site where it was located to Sunnyhill. Beth, Margaret, Mike and the blogger were dirty and more than ready to quit when we finally completed the task. But, it's going to look beautiful.