WE HAVE A FLOOR AND THE DIRT IS GONE!!

The look at the c0nstruction site is changing rapidly now. First, since the last posting, the walls around the basement have been finished and the basment floor has been poured. Dirt has been moved from the large piles to locations around the property to get the site closer to the finished grade. Footings continue to be dug and poured. In fact as of today, the entire east side and Day Chapel footings have been poured and footings have been dug for the entire north wall.

All of this is exciting but the real excitement begins with the arrival of steel on May 7th. If schedules hold, the end of next week steel will be placed in the basement and then on May 11th, the large beems will start rising toward the sky.

The photographs above show, work on the basement floor and views of the property looking toward and away from the Bell Tower which helps you see the progress being made.

BASEMENT CLOSER TO BEING ENCLOSED

Well, we had another 2 days lost to rain, BUT that didn't slow down Rentenbach Contractors or their sub contractors. We were able to get the last portion of the basement walls built. You may be able to read the name of Savage Pumpers in the photograph. Scott Savage, a parishioners has been pumping all the concrete for the basement walls.

Hopefully you also noticed that one pile of dirt is almost gone and the other is being rapidly depleted. That's because the sides of the basement have dirt back in place so that the structure is actually beginning to look like a basement.

In addition, the footings were dug and poured for the beginnings of the outside walls for the choir practice room and the outside walls of the sanctuary. There's a lot more to be done this week in advance of the steel arriving in early May and I'll keep you posted.

WHERE DID ALL THE DIRT GO?

As I'm getting ready to celebrate Easter Sunday, I thought, what better time to provide another update on progress on "Making A Place At the Table". A lot has happened in the last month. As you know, we've had an extremely wet winter and have lost 17 days of construction time due to rain and/or snow, but not to worry.

The last posting showed forms up in preparation for pouring the walls of the basement. As of today, all but approximately 50 feet of the basement walls have been built. In fact, the forms are ready to close in the portion of the basement which served as the access ramp to get equipment into the basement. Early next week that wall should be completed. Also, from the street you can't tell, but there is gravel placed inside the walls, in preparation for pouring the basement floor.

Once all the completed walls were waterproofed, we were able to begin moving dirt from one of the large piles to back fill behind the basement walls. So far the elevation has been raised by about 7 feet on 3 sides of the basement. This is a critical part of the construction, because the area around the basement walls needed to be leveled to the top of the wall so that footings for the steel structure could be poured. I say this is critical because the steel should be arriving for installation in early May. It won't be long until the structure really begins to take shape.

Sacred Salvage: stained glass windows

Lance Waggener who oversees sales at Statesville Stained Glass walks Connie Book through the process of refurbishing stained glass. Statesville Stained Glass is refurbishing the windows the parish purchased from a church being closed.

In this video clip, Lance explains how workers make an etching of the window, disassemble it and then rebuild the supports.



There are 21 of these century-old windows that will be installed in our new church. They were crafted in Bavaria by Oidtmann & Company, the oldest continuous manufacturer or stained glass in Germany.

Connie also wrote an article about her visit to Statesville Stained Glass in our parish's Echoes newsletter.