Little Things and Big Things

The crew from Texas is here now putting down the gym floor. They have been here for a day or two preparing the floor and laying it. Once the floor is in place we will lock the place up tight for about a week. During that time no one will enter the building!

As with any new building we have many little things to do. I believe most of the touch up painting is complete. Mrs. Sue Thompson is painting murals. There are a few oversized electrical outlet cover plates that need to be installed. There is a myriad other small things that need to be done.

We have a few bigger things to do too. We are working on the Dedication and Grand Opening of the ARC. We have nearly nailed down Sunday, August 12 for the Dedication and the following Saturday, August 18 for the Grand Opening. As we develop the plans for those events I will post in this space. So, stay tuned!

9 Days, Upper Room Cafe, Gym Floor

Only 9 more days until we are scheduled to open the doors. Things have appeard to go smoothly. I pray God bless Eckels Evans, Newt Robertson, all the crew and and all the others that have worked tirelessly to get us this far. God is good!

Kevin told me today the ceiling tiles are installed in the Upper Room Cafe. Those tiles will be painted. That should complete the ceiling of the Cafe.

It appears as though the gym floor will not be in place for the opening of the ARC. There are some issues that must be resolved with the roof of the building that have precluded us from beginning to install the floor. Those issues are being addressed. As soon as they are resolved I am certain the floor will be installed.

14 Days, Preparing the Floor

Here you can see the kit we have for testing the moisture that is still in the concrete. The concrete must be dry to a certain point before we can install the SportGrain Plus gym floor. Here is how this kit works:

When ready to check the moisture in the concrete, weigh the dish that contains the white pellets (left) and record that weight on the lid.

Seal the dish in with the plastic container while the dish is on the concrete.

After a specified period, reweigh the contents of the dish and record that weight on the lid. A calculation based on the difference in beginning and ending weight will tell how much moisture the concrete still holds. As a geek, I find this to be a very cool method for determining the amount of water left in the slab.

When we get the results I will post them here. When the concrete is ready, the floor should start going down!

God is good!

The Gym Floor

We are preparing to put in the gym floor. We are installing a product from Sport Court called SportGrain Plus. If you are interested you may read about this very cool product. In a nutshell it is a multi-layer sheet good that looks like a traditional gym floor.

From the literature:

Combine the advantates of cushioned vinyl with the look of natural wood and you get a multi-purpose flor that is as easy to care for as it is aesthetically pleasing. This floor comes in eight color options and several thicknesses.

We are getting the maple surface pattern. I believe we are going with a thickness of 7.65mm.

26 Days, Paint, Lights, A/C, Banner

With 26 days left before launching the ARC I have several things to report.

The inside of the building is largely painted. While there may be a few things to touch up most of the paint is on the wall and dry. This allows us to begin hanging the grid work for the lights. That is the next thing going up.

Later this week the air conditioning will be finished up and turned on. We need to have the A/C on for several days to remove the humidity in order for the gym floor installation to begin. It is looking like the gym floor is one of the final pieces to the puzzle.

We have a banner that will be hung outside telling all about this blog. If you are a guest reading for the first time because of the banner, "Welcome!" And thank you for stopping in. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop a line. You can also visit our church website at http://clearybaptist.org.

Gym Floor

As many of you know the gym floor is not something that originally fit into the budget. However, by diligently watching our cost, Eckels has saved enough money to purchase and install a gym floor. This gym floor is a heat welded floor that is water washable. This is a great thing!

Additionally, a permanent volleyball setup will be installed in the floor. The sleeves for the volleyball net will have plugs which will be flush with the floor when installed.

God is so good!

Big Updates

Over the past week or so many things have been accomplished: All of the drywall has been hung, the ARC has been tied in to the sewer, the gym ceiling has been painted, the lights in the gym are about to be installed, the cabinetry in the bathrooms is being built out, the soffits are being installed under the awning, and we are about to be connected to electricity!

We have received the go ahead to get a banner and place it in front of the building. We will kick that off tomorrow and try to get that installed by Sunday.

We are also setting up a PayPal account for online donations.

Look in this space tomorrow for a big announcment regarding the gym portion of the ARC!