Sunnyhill New Home

As TEDCO gets closer to finishing construction of our new home, they are slimming down operations at our church. The fence across our front lawn was removed last Friday and today they took down the gates. Roy Simmons, who dragged the heavy gates open in the mornings and closed at the end of each day, in good weather and bad, breathed a happy sigh of relief when he heard the news. Tomorrow, he can drive right in. He has the gate lock on his desk as a memento. With the fence down, on Saturday, Charlie Cook and a couple of helpers mowed the overgrown lawn and raked up the leaves that had collected behind it. Our front lawn is much more presentable.

The brown strip behind the grounds crew is where the fence was located. The area will be seeded when the new landscaping goes in.

TEDCO's tool trailer, which has been a fixture in our front yard since last September, was hooked up and towed away. The office trailer will follow this Friday. Until construction is completed, TEDCO will operate out of the Oak Room in our new building.

In preparation for paving, the dumpster was temporarily moved from the driveway leading to the garage to an accessible location in front of the church.

The edges of the new parking lot were marked with bright orange paint. The area to the right in this photo will have two handicap parking spaces. The area to the west of the line in the foreground will be part of the new garden in front of the church.

The area to the right of the orange line will be our new garden, which will be populated with easy-to-maintain, deer-resistant plants selected by Beth Hedin and Margaret Hamstead. The garden will be planted within the next two to three weeks. Look for an announcement requesting assistance from the gardeners in our church community.

This plan view of the new parking lot and driveway shows where our new spaces have been added. This drawing has been marked in red to indicate the location of wedge curbs and level edges for the parking lot. Caruso is expected to begin work on Tuesday, June 13, and take three days to complete the paving. No one will be able to drive across the new asphalt until the following Tuesday, June 20. Staff and visitors will park on Sunnyhill Drive.

Sunnyhill has a vast amount of property disturbed during construction. To receive our occupancy permit, that area must be raked, covered with topsoil, seeded and covered with mushroom manure to regrow the lawn. Part of the old chain link fence that was in dangerous disrepair has been removed to allow our landscaper to better shape the hillside above the memorial garden and into the wooded area at the back of our property.

This view of the area to be reseeded was taken from the window behind the stage in our sanctuary. One of our resident groundhogs makes his/her way across the barren waste to greener pastures. Steel Blades Landscaping, whom we've hired to do the lawn, is expected to start the week after the parking lot is paved, on or about June 20. They will be delivering topsoil this Monday or before so they don't have to drive a tri-axle dump truck across our new paving. 

Moving inside the new addition, the stairway is nearly complete. The banisters are in place and ready to be stained. The treads and risers have been added, but since they are covered with cardboard for protection, no photo was taken.

The newel post caps were being added today. The blogger managed to snap a photo of one before heading home to watch his granddaughter, Madison, after school.

Our front door received a coat of oil-based primer after the painter asked twice, "Are you sure you want to paint the front door?" If you look closely at the right side of the photo, behind the yellow leg for the scaffolding you can see the push-button for our new, automated, ADA compliant front door. Above it is the knox box, which will hold a key to the front door for use by the fire department in an emergency. We'll have to do something about the decals. They really mess up the aesthetics of our new doorway.

The operator for the automated door is in the long rectangular box above the door. It isn't pretty, but it works and it's the least intrusive design available. The operating button is located to the right of the doorway.

The basement classroom has been primed and maple risers have been added to the front of the steps leading to the RE Library. The RE library can also serve as a small stage for the RE classes.

Before moving on, here is a visual quiz. Who knows what this is for? It's a trick that contractors use to catch the dust and debris from drilling holes when mounting things on walls. It reduces cleanup. It was used in mounting the objects in the next few photos. 

...Like the towel dispenser in the infant and toddler room...

The towel dispenser, grab bars... 

...toilet paper dispenser and baby changing station in the gender neutral restroom...

...and the paper towel dispenser in the ladies room. Still to be added are the soap dispensers, which are on back-order.

The stalls have been added to the women's and men's restrooms. They will be cleaned in the next round of cleaning.

All three of our new restrooms have handicap accessible stalls. This one is in the women's room.

To wrap up today's blog, here is a photo of the drum chandeliers recently installed in the new sanctuary. When the diffusers are added to the bottoms, the name for the eponymous light fixtures will become obvious.