The baptistry is coming along! This week, the refinishing team is hard at work painting and sealing the baptistry tub. The process requires several coats of finish, the last of which should take place today or tomorrow. In order to control the odor, our architect and construction teams devised an interesting exhaust system to vent the smell up through the bell tower. So far, this setup has worked very efficiently and we have barely noticed a smell throughout the building this past week. At the end of this week, one of our subcontractors will be in house to install the flooring finishes in the baptistry area.

In addition, some landscaping work will begin this week as dirt is brought in to fill in between the stone squares at the base of the stairwell from the tower sanctuary door. The dirt will be placed and leveled, and plants will be placed between the stones to create more of a garden feel in that area.

You may have noticed on Sunday that our new indoor stairwell down to Fellowship Hall is open! Please make use of it and experiment with new traffic patterns as we move into this new school year.

Finally, you may have noticed that our sidewalk out front still resembles a driveway. It is very wide due to the outdoor stairwell leading to Fellowship Hall, and the need for a handicap accessible sidewalk that leads up to the new glass entry doors. However, it was not designed to hold the weight of a vehicle and is solely for walking purposes. Please help us preserve the integrity of the sidewalk and prevent cracking of the concrete by refraining from parking in that area. We are exploring options that will help prevent neighborhood use of this area for parking as well.

After meeting with the construction team, it seems that our project should be complete in about a month (September 15!) and we anticipate being able to use the baptistry within a couple of weeks. We are so grateful for everyone’s flexibility as we continue through this final portion of our season of renovation. –Renee Purtlebaugh