It was Day 61 of the Covid-19 Lockdown and I was looking at the damaged walls of the chair and table store room in the Parish Hall. The wall where the thermostat is mounted bore the brunt of many bumps and scratches of stacks of chairs colliding against it. There was no question in my mind that this damage had to be repaired. But, how could I prevent this damage from happening again? Hmm . . .
I broke out a sheet of paper and carefully mapped out where things were on the wall. There were two horizontal stripes of scrapes. The lower stripe ran between 12 to 18 inches from the floor. The second stripe ran from 41 to 47 inches from the floor. Once everything was mapped out, I filed the diagram in my work log.
The Lockdown provided me the time to work on four large painting and restoration projects simultaneously. The chair and table store room was one of them. The Outer Narthex project used the most plaster and paint. The Ministries’ Office needed the most attention because of what needed to be sorted and cleared out of the room. The Music room required mostly painting and a bit of plastering. All four projects relied on me using only materials that were on site. So, mixing various cans of leftover paint to come up with enough paint to finish a project was key to successful completion of any of the four projects during the Lockdown.
It was Day 30 of the “New Normal” when I put the final touches on the Parish Hall’s chair and table store room. To protect the once damaged wall in the store room, I installed two horizontal chair rails using leftover laminate from the 2012 - 2013 Parish Hall renovation. To protect the wall’s outside corner, I used a piece of leftover “filler” board. Some coloured pew screws were used to fasten the laminate to the wall.
Stay safe. Stay well. Stay connected. And, until next time, this is Michael Pollard for This old Church of Ours.