June 12, 2007 by Al Hammer.

Today Spirit of Faith was working on improvements to the entryways such as:

Freshening up the paint:

Doing some landscaping:

And then inside:

Putting up blinds in the Sanctuary:

and moving some chandeliers:

They were suppose to re-carpet the lobby areas and the Fellowship Hall today, but ran into a snag on the quantity of carpet needed. So the plan at the moment is to carpet the lobby area and the downstairs hallway this week and do the Fellowship Hall probably next week.

Posted in Glenmar Road Building Renovations | No Comments »

June 7, 2007 by Al Hammer.

The chairs arrived and were put out partially today to see how things were going to work:

The lower parking lot received a fresh new coating today and will be striped on Friday.

Same with the front upper parking lot:

On Friday they will coat the balance of the upper parking lot and re-stripe every thing.
The “104 Lobby” was carpeted yesterday along with the hallway along the coat racks leading from the “104 Lobby” to the Main Lobby. The Main Lobby and the Fellowship Hall will be re-carpeted on Monday.

This Saturday some of our Tech Team will be meeting with their folks and testing out the Sound and visual systems. Hopefully we will be using the new sound system this Sunday.

Posted in Glenmar Road Building Renovations | No Comments »

June 7, 2007 by Al Hammer.

I know, I know! Last week I told you that they were not going to take the pews out and bring in chairs. Well that was as of last Friday. Saturday we heard rumor to from Spirit of Faith that may change AGAIN!

Sure enough on Monday we got word that Spirit of Faith had decided to remove all pews and would be bringing in chairs.

Spirit of Faith gave the pews to Sharon Bible Fellowship in Lanham, Maryland.

The moving crew brought in dollies:

They ramped them up into a total of 5 tractor trailer loads:

And the Sanctuary seemed a little open and airy:

Spirit of Faith continued the process of removing the organ speakers and painting:

Also, new light fixtures were put in the Narthex area.

Also today they started the patching process on all of the parking lots:

I also found out today that the chandeliers hanging above the Amen Corner and the Choir Loft will have to come down entirely in order for the projector systems to work properly. We will have to work on proper lighting for the Choir area particularly.

Posted in Glenmar Road Building Renovations | No Comments »

June 4, 2007 by Al Hammer.

Today they detached all of the pews and moved them to the back of the room and carpeted the front. Then they moved them all to the front of the room and carpeted the back.

First the glue:

Then the rough cut carpet:

Then fine tuning the cuts for tight seams:

Then getting the wrinkles out:

They also worked on replacing the ceiling tiles in the main lobby area and the Narthex/back of the Sanctuary area.

Out with the old:

In with the new:

Posted in Glenmar Road Building Renovations | No Comments »

May 31, 2007 by Al Hammer.

Today we learned several new things from Spirit of Faith concerning the renovations taking place in the Sanctuary. Several other tasks are moving forward on schedule with the renovations.

1) Today they were able to hook up the Organ to the new sound system and are confident that it will provide the sound that we need.

2) They began the demolition of the speaker cabinet above the “Amen Corner” holding the 5 main speakers for the organ on that side.

3) They hung the first of the video projectors from the ceiling that will project on a screen that will eventually be mounted on the wall where the Organ Speaker cabinet was. Kind of behind where our current screen is located but a little higher on the wall. Our screen will then go away and be used in a new location.

4) Painting of the walls in the Sanctuary continues. The first of two coats has for the most part been completed.

5) The new carpet in the Chancel area has been put down. The color is a dark rich “plum purple” that goes very nicely with the new wall colors. Here are a couple of shots that show a little different shading. One with a flash and the other with natural light from the west sun.

6) As you can see the pulpit has been removed and will not go back up leaving more room for versatility in the chancel area. A smaller portable/movable podium will be used. This was in the plans from the beginning. However, the original plans did have Spirit of Faith renovating the Chancel area by making the lower stage area smaller. That will not happen at this time. The stage area will stay the same size as you can see from the recarpeted pictures above.

7) The Chancel Railing has been removed and Glen Mar’s Worship Team will be helping to guide how those Railings will be reconstructed, perhaps into mobile kneeling benches that can be deployed as needed for our worship experiences.

The new sound system is pretty much ready to go. Spirit of Faith’s technical crew will be joining with our sound and video folks tomorrow evening to begin training that we will need in order to use this system. We anticipate that it will be fully functional this Sunday.

9) Last but not least for today,… we have just been told that Spirit of Faith will be installing the same new carpet in the main floor area of the Sanctuary (the Nave) next week AND they will be reinstalling the pews. They will NOT be changing the pews to Chairs at this time and perhaps not for the foreseeable future.

P.S.) This week when you come to church, expect a little dust and some things might be out of place. We have been assured by Spirit of Faith that they will clean as best they can before Sunday. But there has been a lot of dust and debris flying so help us by being patient and understanding. I have been told that since they will be keeping the pews, they will be having them professionally cleaned once the main renovations are complete. I honestly believe once it is all finished Glen Mar will be very pleased with the new accommodations.

Posted in Glenmar Road Building Renovations | No Comments »