Amazing Discovery

As you know from last week's posting, the exterior doors of the church are being refurbished. Most of them are being replaced altogether, but a couple of them are being "re-skinned" - having the outer veneers replaced with wood to match the brand-new doors. One of those is the old priests' entrance to the sacristy. It's a tiny door on the northeast corner of the building. Initially, the priest could open it and walk directly into the sacristy from outside. The interior has been remodeled since 1888. The interior floor no longer corresponds to the threshold of the exterior door, so the door is not longer usable as an entrance. Since it doesn't work any more, the plan is to give it the appearance of a door with new veneer and hardware but to save the expense of actually making it functional.

This week the existing "skin" of that door was removed and underneath it we discovered the original 1888 door. It's in remarkably good condition considering its age and the exposure to weather it would have experienced on the north side of the building. Here are some pictures of the door used by Fr. Sword, Fr. Stewart-Smith and Fr. Merrill to enter the sacristy.

To restore the door, our artisans who are working on that project will fill some of the spaces where the wood has rotted, refinish it with a color to coordinate with the new doors and a protective sealant to protect the wood. We'll add hardware and the door will once again be a reminder to passers by of the history of this great building.

Building Work Group - May Meeting

The building work group met on the evening of May 13 with all but one member present. There was a very lively discussion of how renovation of the Parish Hall could affect the work of Downtown Outreach.

One option is the creation of a multi-purpose room on the lower level below the Parish Hall. This room could be used for meetings, choir rehearsal, education, child care, a bride's room and a dining room for Downtown Outreach's Saturday hot lunch program.

There are a lot of questions about what would be required in order to make it possible to serve lunch on the lower level, with the kitchen upstairs. A preliminary floor plan and rendering have been created by Julie Arntson, an associate of Susan Richards Johnson & Associates, architects for the renovation project. Those will accompany an upcoming post on this blog. Discussion of all aspects of the Parish Hall renovation will continue. The meeting last night identified a nubmer of issues requiring additional research and observation.

The original drawings of the church building and Parish Hall created in 1886 by architect William Halsey Wood have been discovered and the Building Work Group enjoyed seeing them at the meeting. Some pictures of those drawings accompany this posting.

Work Begins on the Doors

Work has started on the replacement of the exterior doors of the church building. The new doors are being fabricated of mahogany. It's a painstaking process because each door is of different size and slightly different shape.

The door manufacturer is creating templates from each of the existing doors to serve as a pattern for the new doors. Work is also being done on the door jambs (the frame that the door sits in). Here are some pictures of the work in progress.

The west doors of the parish hall will be installed first. Right now those doors are not usable, but the new set will be and we hope that they will eventually become the "go to" entrance to the parish hall. The remaining doors will be removed and their replacements installed one door at a time.

In addition to replacement of the doors, masonry surrounding the door openings is being restored and several deteriorated doorsteps are being replaced. The masonry surrounding the doors will be tuck pointed and broken or damaged bricks will be replaced with vintage brick to match the existing masonry. New doorsteps are Indiana limestone.

The anticipated completion date for replacement of all of the doors is July 10, 2009.