Tuesday--Floor on inside of church is gone!

By the end of the day Friday, all the concrete from the sides and middle that was busted up, was all cleaned up and hauled out of the church. On Monday, the demolition of the entire floor in the sanctuary was completed. They are now working on the removal of all the rock and busted up concrete.

You can see by the picture that the pillars are sitting on stone which appears to have been carved into the shape you see. Those stones seem to be a different type of rock from the stones they found under the concrete and from the stones that make up the walls of the church.

Today they are working on busting up the concrete in the back rooms and entrance of the church, as well as continuing to haul out rocks from inside the church. Crews also continue to work on the plaster on the south side of the church.

Progress on the Organ--Pedal Pipes!

Here are some more pictures sent by Friedemann, the gentleman who is restoring the church organ, in Florida. These pictures are of the pedal chest on which the pipes sit that are played by the feet. He found that most of the pedal pipes have loose joints and cracks and need re-gluing. He also noted that the small pedal pipes now have new long feet to let the bass speak out. Fascinating!

Friday--Lots more action!

Pastor took the school kids to look at the church and explained what they are doing. You can also see the stones that are still under the concrete.

The plaster on the outside of the church is undergoing another stage.

Big rocks were found under the floor down the center aisle of the church. These rocks are being removed one by one, by hand, to preserve them for possible future use. You can see the areas down the side of the church where the tile and concrete have been busted up. There is also rock under these sections, it is just smaller than the ones down the center aisle.

Friday--Leveling it out

Water was pumped from the area around the back of the church and a load of sand was brought in to help level out the area.

Thursday--Demolition Begins!

On Thursday, the demolition of the floors in the church began. They used jackhammers to bust up the tiles and removed all the debris. They also worked on the plaster on the outside of the church.

Work is in progress on the plaster on the outside walls of the church. They smoothed the rocks and tucked them tight yesterday and then began to fill in the holes and cracks, which they are still working on today. This is all a part of the 4-step process of re-plastering the walls.

You can see they have proceeded to cover things up in the church. A heavy, black plastic was used to cover from one side of the balcony to the other. Also, the entire altar area has been covered for protection.

The rocks that were predicted to be under the concrete slab were indeed found under the altar. Once the altar was disassembled, they found these rocks and began removing them by hand, one by one to prevent them from breaking. They tried to remove a section of the conrete slab to see if there were any rocks under it, but couldn't easily do that due to how the slabs were assembled. As you can see from the pictures, they poured sections of slabs (rather than one big slab) and these sections overlap each other fitting together kind of like a puzzle.

Tuesday--Working on the inside!

Construction has begun on the inside of the church. This is the view upon entering the church. The carpet has been taken up and they have begun to cover everything with plastic. You can see the posts and ceiling fans are already covered with plastic.

The Altar steps have been removed. You can see that there is rock showing on the floor under the altar. The remainder of the altar will be left intact, but covered for protection during construction.

They dug a hole in the floor to see what exists around the pillars. It seems that rocks were stacked up to support the pillars. In the pillar areas, around those support rocks, there seems to simply be dirt under the 4 inch slab. You can see where the hole is and a close up of what they found.

Monday--Plaster work

The strengthening beam was poured in the front of the church on Friday.

You can see the membrane was put down in the back of the church, but just hasn't been covered up yet. You can also see the drain pipe that was put in to help control water drainage.

Their still isn't much going on inside. They did a few test spots on the plaster and, as you can see on picture, they pulled up a couple of spots on the tile to see what's there.

You can see the samples of the stages of plaster work on the south side of the church.

Plaster is being taken off on all sides of the church in different areas. You can see the north side where they took some of the plaster off on Friday.

You can also see the plaster sample they did in the church on Friday under one of the windows.

Due to the amount of water standing at the front of the church and seeping up into the rocks, the front side of the church will have to be replastered.