10/26/2017
Hello to all my clients, friends and family! I know nothing has been posted here in quite some some time so I wanted to update everyone on the one, lone, interesting summer project I worked on.
Summer 2016 was the church office renovation but summer 2017 was, well, TRINITY!
In March and April of this year I started bidding on the partial renovation of my kids school. Specifically the 1968 and 1969 wings. (www.facebook.com/TrinityLutheranUtica/) Certain areas from the gym and gym lobby including the adjacent bathrooms needed updating. This scope and type of work is right in my wheel house. Fast forward to May and the preliminary planning stages yielded the discovery of hidden asbestos, faulty wiring, broken plumbing and countless required updates. Long story short, what started as a 6-8 week gym project turned into a 6 month, $1 mil+, 32,000 sf gutting of 2/3 of the school building, displacement of several ministries, our summer camp and our Journey worship services. What a challenge laid before us! Every item we touched required 3-4 additional steps to make right. With the support of many expert sub-contractors, Trinity employees and Gods guiding hand, we proudly finished ALL (yes, all) required items the day before school started. Actually the morning of the registration day to be honest. There has been quite the punch-list to complete which is now almost complete! (99%)
Tasks completed: (and I know I will forget many items and there are many more that were preliminary steps too many to list)
-remediate asbestos containing plaster, pipe wrap and fire doors from all hallways and misc rooms
-replace all rotted steel bathroom drain pipes both above ground and below slab. Jet and clean all sewer lines.
-build temporary but lockable enclosure for gym entry
-gut and completely renovate gym lobby including 3" of disintegrating cement flooring, new hvac system, new 3" gyp-crete cement sub floor, new cabinetry and counters, new stone columns and wainscotting, new soffit and ceiling, new carpeting, new video technology
-new large hallway display cases where old exterior windows used to be
-gut and completely renovate 4 bathrooms including new urinals, piping, new tile floor and wainscotting, new ceilings, new lighting, new toilet partitions
-paint all hallways, doors, door openings, ceiling grid and many classroom walls
-raise height of suspended ceiling in several hallways which required relocating and replacing a good portion of the coolant piping and electrical and hvac connections
-install new drop ceiling grid in most of the school with new tile in all school hallways (exc 3rd floor)
-upgraded all lighting in hallways, several rooms, and gymnasium to LED
-build new classroom - hallway dividing walls for 10 classrooms
-prep, repair and install new vct, new rubber tile and carpet flooring in 6 rooms including two stairwells
-new rubber stair treads in one stairwell
-new network and alarm cabling through entire school and new server locations
-5 new drinking fountains with bottle filling stations, new tile back splashes
-replace all switches and plugs in all affected areas, add several new plugs
-rewire entire bell tower for new lights, new bell controller and the famous lighted Christmas tree
-repaired fire suppression system
-work with the roofers as they replaced 1/2 the roofs on the building
-replace non-functional room exhaust fans and timers
-replace 10 flat-roof drains and several flat-roof stack flashings
-work with tuck pointers as they repaired the entire campus exterior
-prep our bell tower to receive the new bell (early november!!!)
-repaint gym (twice!)
-paint exterior wall of building
-install new sound dampening material (Tectum) where old speakers and light cages were located.
-rework ALL electrical in gym to accommodate new lighting and sound
-replace 3 gym rooftop HVAC units and all wiring
-new scoreboard, new crash pads, cleaned all bleachers and backboards, new doors to under-stage storage, new programmable-moving head lighting and cages for stage performances / church services, new projectors and screens
-seal all ceiling joints due to new roof
-40 new doors and hardware throughout the school
-rework the media room for Journey live-streaming (in the near future)
-paint entire stage, new stage curtains, repaired curtain tracks, repair and float stage floor, new laminated dance stage flooring, new electrical, relocated and consolidated sound equipment, new stage storage and audio closets, new walkway lighting and utility lighting, new stage nosing
-new light trussing on stage.
-new cabinetry in the art room and a few classrooms, refaced cabinetry in several other classrooms
-steel art display cabling in all hallways
-chase and repair roof leaks, plugs, lights, doors, odors, etc
-clean, clean and clean again and then clean once more for every Sunday church service in the gym.
This project expanded exponentially from what any of us originally thought in April/May. Many of us worked 14 hour days, 6-7 days a week all summer to see this project through completion. The end result though is a cleaner, brighter, better working, easier to maintain, more energy efficient building that will last for the NEXT 50 years.
I do want to apologize to those clients who I was supposed to start projects this summer. I pushed EVERYTHING off (including vacations) to stay dedicated to Trinity. My intent is to get those projects rolling very soon. !!!Thank you!!! to everyone for being patient with me this summer and thank you for your compliments on the completed work. Many tradespeople dedicated themselves to make this happen.
I will post some before/after pics of some of the areas we completed. In the mean time, below is a link to a video which highlights SOME of the work completed.
Certainly, none of these projects (including tuckpointing, roof replacements, new lighting, etc.) could have come to completion without the love and dedicati...
