A Big Day For the Church
Posted on March 17, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 12 Comments
It might not look like much, but the picture you see here represents an important milestone in the renovation of The Old Church: That chimney has been capped and tuckpointed, and those white slats have sealed up an area where wind and water could get in, transferring both cold and moisture to the interior of church. With these capped and sealed, the exterior of the church is finally done, as well the interior improvements that required tearing things up, moving things out, or bringing new infrastructure in. The first major phase of improvement is finished.
What’s left? In the interior we need to replaster and repaint the walls, and in the balcony, we’ll need to have bookshelves installed. After those two things, it’s mostly interior decoration that needs to be done, but that’s about aesthetics rather than function. There will always be things that need to be done, mind you — you don’t purchase a nearly 90-year-old church building if you don’t think there will be upkeep — but (knocks on altar wood) the big stuff is over for now. The (more) fun part of the restoration is here.
— JS
TIL what tuckpointing is. Also a mortar gun.
Are mortar guns protected under the 2nd Amendment?
Congratulations 🎉
meaning friends/family, or an even more talented work crew?
takes a village
of course congrats either way.
More photos please!
You’re making some great progress here. Congrats.
Woohoo! Now comes the fun stuff.
I do love seeing old buidlings repurposed, and in the process be cared for, rather than alowed to decay until they have to be demolished.
a bit late, but I finally found it… basis for your next series of novels… better yet you get to deduct any and all ocean cruises as semi-legit research expenses!
https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2001-10-10
VISUALIZE: in 2037 a chatGPT-derived robotic crew aboard the “Pacifica Queen” a newly built cruise ship built specifically for the demographic of bottom tier budget conscious middle class families looking for a month long excursion which includes remote learning & remote earning… as much automation as feasible to trim costs and offer consistent quality of service… with fiendish plans for re-purposing the robotic hordes to staff those lowest of low tier nursing homes once most of the bugs are shaken out aboard cruise ships…
what could possibly go wrong…?
Having bought and renovated several older homes, one of red brick, none of which were of the scale of the Church, I can speak to the difficulty of successfully renovating buildings. It is hard~!!~
The new flashing on the Church looks good. The masonry on the chimney on the other hand looks kind of rough to have been dealt with by professional masons. I speak of missing and damaged bricks, it isn’t a photo that tells me anything about the newly tuckpointed brickwork.
But maybe missing bricks are not something a routine rehab addresses? Maybe you need something way more comprehensive to deal with that issue?
Anyway, congratulations on the major exterior rehab project completing. Looking good !!
Forgot if this was addressed before.
What are the plans for internet? High speed available in town?
All the best, Frank
Howard_NYC, didn’t you just propose the same plot to Charlie Stross? Doubling down, eh?
Lif Strand is right; we need more photos of this ongoing project!