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buildingwork

New Building Work

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  • Commenting: If you can’t use your google credentials to login to comment, try creating an account for this site using the “login” link in the comment section. Doing so seems to be working reliably for everyone, whereas google, not so much.
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  • Pictures from before we started working on it: See pictures here. 
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  • Church Building Design discussion here.
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178 replies on “New Building Work”

From Anastasia:

Hi friends! We will be setting up a more serious schedule of volunteer days at the hall which will hopefully help Father to get a lot of stuff done before the hall is rented on Lazarus Saturday (April 8) and used for Paschal celebrations (April 16). I know that Spring Breaks are also coming up, and I’d love to encourage any teachers or students to consider spending a day working at the hall if remaining in town (contact Father to give him a heads-up).

We will have two major Saturday work days:
March 25: Holy Annunciation Liturgy at the church, followed by fish fry and work day at the hall. Marissa will have a sign-up sheet for potluck items.
April 1: One week before use; will involve a lot of clean-up.

Throughout Lent we will also be doing smaller scale work days on Fridays. Brigid has offered to head up some childcare and kid activities at the church, so that parents have the opportunity to drop off kids and do some work at the hall. Help in both places would probably be great! For now, Brigid will plan to be at the church between 9am-2pm starting this Friday, March 10. 

Would anyone like this gas stove from the hall before I get rid of it? It seems to work just fine.

Many pipes! Lots of plumbing is happening at the hall, see pictures.
Also excavators are busy taking trees down, they will probably be doing so for a week or more. see picture.

Lots more to do though, more labor would be great if anyone has some hours to spare. 🙂

White or light grey. I’m not looking for a high contrast aesthetic experience in that particular space, just a super clean vibe. ?

I’d say Colonial Blue.
The whole room’s very grey already, which for me rules out grey and beige; white and black are pretty stark. Blue would go well with what we have now.

I like the slate; keeps with the color scheme. We can add pictures on wall, etc…to add color once we are done.

I have to side with Loretta on this one- something like slate or light gray would fit better with the theme we have going. Also, a lighter color would make the area feel more spacious, while darker colors close in… (in case bathroom stalls don’t already produce claustrophobia 😀 ). Anyway, light gray would be my vote.

Tiling and grout festivities continue tomorrow morning at 9am. Pictures from today attached.

Any strong feelings on what would be the best bathroom sink configuration for the women’s bathroom?

a) two sinks in a countertop,
b) only one sink in same size the countertop, leaving it mostly counter space,
c) only one sink with a little counter space, leaving room/flexibility for another piece of furniture altogether. (a nursing chair? shelves of some kind?)

Option A.
The line to wash hands can build up with a large crowd even with enough toilets. I also am not a fan of nursing in restrooms but that might just be me.

Agreed. Extra counterspace just leaves room for junk to pile up. And should I ever have cause to nurse, I wouldn’t want to do it in a bathroom either. 🙂

Amanda, Loretta and Erin got three walls tiled today, pictures attached. More tiling to happen Friday after Liturgy.

We started framing the walls between the new rooms, one room and a closet are done. See picture.
I’ll be there off and on this week if anyone wants to join the fun.
Bathroom tiling starts Wednesday.

Turns out Lowes failed us on both the cement board and the tile. So that part is moved back again to next week.

The new floors are finished, pictures attached.
The installer told me the surface will be as hard as Chinese arithmetic. 🙂

Supplies the the rest of the project will be delivered Saturday (12/17), so I’m hosting a carry-in-all-the-heavy-sheetrock party there at the hall at 11am, with lunch to follow.

Would anyone like to find some wall tile for the bathrooms?
We need about 400 square feet.

As far as matching the floor, the floor pattern will look like “flintstone” from here:
https://premiercoatingssturgis.com/flake-options/
(although a different pattern could be chosen up until 12/9).

I could go with anything, but I think bigger tile would be better, even as big as 12×24, it will go on faster and have a lot fewer grout lines.

It’s going to go up to about 5′ off the floor, so it would be nice if they sold matching end piece tiles with a rounded edge for the top row. But not a deal-breaker.

I’ve attached three pictures to this post, an industrial stove and hood. A friend of Judy’s is selling them. (stove=$1000, hood=$400).
Is this what we want for the hall kitchen?
The hood seems like what we want, and it’s priced reasonably.
The stove is also priced reasonably. What I’m not sure about is if we’d want one with this setup, 6 burners and 1 griddle.
Thoughts?

That looks great to me. I don’t know if there were discussions about what we wanted already but this seems like a great improvement. A griddle could be super fun and open up some possibilities for us.

Concrete truck is coming Thursday 1pm to fill the floor back in. Since the minimum amount they bring is twice as much as we need, we’re going to also pour a 10×10 slab outside of the kitchen door going out back.

We’re going to do a concrete coating on the floor for the hall, both for the back rooms and the bathrooms.

Here are our choices:

https://premiercoatingssturgis.com/flake-options/

I asked which of those options would be best at hiding dirt, and they said it was the one called “flintstone”. They also thought that one has the most universal ability to blend with typical walls/tile/furniture inside.
But it’s all the same to me. So if there is an outcry on this blog for some other choice that’s fine. We have 3-4 weeks before they come to decide.

Oh my! That one would be cool. Could we sprinkle in some kid’s toys too? You’d always be bending over to pick them up and realize they’re part of the floor.

Digging completed, see pictures attached.

Also, Erin would like to fix up the plants outside the hall on Friday morning at 10am. I can’t be there myself. Would anyone be willing to join her? We have plenty of shovels there at the moment. 🙂

Status of hall remodel: The floor has been cut and jackhammered in order to lay the new pipes for the bathrooms. Next step is to dig them deeper. Anyone who knows how to use a shovel is welcome to continue the project. 🙂 Pictures attached.

Getting back to work on the hall here….

The plan is to do whatever remodeling we’d like starting in October and hopefully finishing in January.

Here is the floor plan as it is right now:
https://uofi.box.com/s/ljb25jqq6gengxouyjipcx0i1w3tnoxx

Here is the proposed floor plan:
https://uofi.box.com/s/cz7bam1x63d5yeo02vfgohtmynxz68b5

Does anyone have any thoughts, corrections, comments or questions?

Luke, Colm: look good for plumbing and code issues? As far as I’ve researched I’ve got it all ADA compliant. And all the pipes ought to be able to run along that middle wall.

The main room part of the building isn’t changing at all, that’s why it’s not part of the pictures. It’s just off to the right. The plans are just the west most 40% of the building.

I would be concerned about the entry area being only 5′ wide with so many doors, one of which is the women’s bathroom, being a pinch point. With coats on hooks, it’s likely going to make it only 4′ of space for moving about. Having just torn out a kitchen with a walk way of only 4′, it’s very tight for multiple people. I’m also thinking that the door for the closet being on the short side of a very long, thin closet makes for awkward storage. Unless you leave a walking path, which takes up space in the closet, you’re not likely going to be getting at things in the back often, if ever. (I think there’s a pattern on shelves that expressed a thought on the depth of cabinets that might apply here?) It might be better for the door to be on the reception area side, and maybe be double doors. Both the hallway in the entry area and that adjoining closet might benefit from being a bit wider, even if that means less reception area space. The sinks in the women’s bath could possibly go on the south wall if they no longer for in their current orientation and you’re set on having 2 sinks.

The minimum size non ADA stall is 30″x60″ for a floor mount toilet and 30″x56″ for a wall hung toilet. So you could definitely shrink those a bit to make more floor space, which we’ll need because the wall between the bathrooms will have to be much wider, ~2′ or so, depending on which fixtures and fittings we use, and because those fixtures and fittings vary based on manufacturer we’ll need to know that beforehand to save the most space. Attached is a picture of some of the types of fittings we’d be dealing with.

Ok, good feedback, here’s the next revision:

https://uofi.box.com/s/8a0i9rsb3jkjmm8barwwo02slgdj7hru

Brooke:
Good point on the narrow hallway, I added a foot to it. Is that enough you think?

As for that closet, I was thinking of it as a storage space for main room’s tables/chairs, so that’s why I’d want it open on the short side and give it a direct access to the main room via that hallway. Otherwise we’d have to weave tables/chairs/etc into the reception area and then back out of it again, whereas this way it’s a straight shot from the main room.

I’m not set on having two sinks. Would it be better to have only one and leave space for a nursing chair or something else?
But it would be easier for plumbing if we kept them on the center wall (right Luke?). But we could put them on a different wall if that’s better – but I don’t understand why that’s better?

Luke:
I didn’t stumble across the fact that the stalls could be narrower with on-wall toilets, that’s great, thanks. I had made them 1″ wider than was necessary, so in the revision I did the same with the new measurements, I’ve made them so that each stall is 1″ wider than the minimum.
I also made the center wall 2′ think. We can adjust that once we figure out the exact toilets/fittings that we’re ordering.

I don’t know that I have a solution or even a suggestion, but something that maybe is applicable to the storage room that will hold tables and chairs for the main hall area. A standard doorway may end up being frustrating. Often when I am helping set up, there is traffic going both directions getting tables or chairs, if there were a way to make that whole wall go away for moving things in and out, that would prevent ramming into other people with tables or chair racks.

Do the existing bathrooms have floor drains? If so, will they work in their current locations? They’ll be required by code, (though a floor length urinal like we have now counts as one.)

Luke: As I recall I don’t think either bathroom has a floor drain, so I’ll add that to our do-list.

Koren: Good point on that closet. It would be best if we could roll carts of tables/chairs in and out of there without dealing with a door frame. But then we’ll probably want something else to cover its unsightliness. A curtain or some sort? Or maybe those foldable room partition things that run floor to ceiling along tracks? I’m up for ideas.

I’d like to try a work day at the hall this Friday, December 17th. 10am until whenever.
It would be nice if we could get the ceiling replaced in the back room.
If there are more workers than we need for that, there is plenty of out door work to do too.
If you could let me know if you’re coming, that will help me plan the project better.
thanks!

Next landscaping work day is Saturday Oct 16th, 10am.

Meanwhile, plenty of misc work to do there if you want to go some other time, like painting chairs, dealing with brush/trees, etc. Let me know if you have time to do any.

Tree house subfloor installed today.
Next we need:
1 2x6x8 treated
1 2x6x10 treated
15 10’ deck boards

Jason and Evan are getting the chairs painted. Lots more to do If anyone would like to paint.

Christ is risen!

Tomorrow, Saturday the 15th, there will be a couple projects going on at the hall.

Jason and Ryan are heading up floor stripping and re-waxing.

Evan, Matthew and I are going to cut down a bunch of vines/etc from the trees using a boom lift we rented.

If you’d like to help with either project, or any of the other work there, we’ll start around 9am. Not sure when we’ll finish, but there will at least be lunch. 🙂

Does anyone need to get at anything very high on their own property? I have this 35′ boom lift rented until Monday and I only had to pay the daily price for it. It’s free after our work tomorrow if you want to take it.

Is there a designated place for a playground at the building? Is there a plan?

*I have a lead.

Updates: See pictures. Bathrooms looking great. Brush pile burned. All 10 windows installed and trimmed, floor got its trim too. It needs a few minor things yet, then a good cleaning, and then it will be ready for Pascha.

What little things are left?

Any major cleaning tasks in particular?

I will have some time on Holy Wednesday and/or Holy Thursday afternoon to help.

For cleaning, Koren posted this on facebook:

  • I will be working on cleaning the new building next monday (April 26th) from 10 am until it’s ready (hopefully not much past 6ish) for Pascha, if you can join me at any point it would be wonderful! Thanks to everyone who has been working so hard to make it work!

So we’ll see where we are after Monday as far as cleaning goes.

The other little things are bonus things, like getting the paper towel dispensers hung up, or the baby changing table on the wall, or wall light sconces, etc.

I plan on being there a bit today (Monday) and hopefully most of tomorrow (Tuesday).

I like the paint first and then the lighter wood. But I think the paint would make the room feel bigger.

I mocked up three windows with each of the trim options (using the real wood this time instead of cardboard). Pictures attached.

Option 1) white paint,
option 2) dark stain,
option 3) no stain.

If you have a preference, shout it out quickly, we’ve got to get this one moving forward.

Meanwhile, I helped a few people who have not been able to post, but in each case I found that they hadn’t reloaded the page after logging in.
So if you’re having trouble, login again, come back to this page, and then hit the RELOAD button thingy at the top of your browser. 🙂

Agreed–though, what are we doing for baseboard? That could affect how we want the window trim to look.

Phoebe wanted to see the unstained window with poly on it, so here it is.

I think I like the unstained best.

To Katie: the idea is that all the baseboards and windows would have the same style trim.

I can post now, hooray! One thought. You can always go from natural wood to paint, but you can’t go from paint back to natural wood (well, without a lot of trouble). So, one idea is to start with natural wood. If you don’t like it, you can paint.

Following up on the discussion to make the hall available for rentals starting this summer…

I think we have to get it “out there”, even if the hall itself isn’t ready yet.  For anyone out there to be able to make any kind of plans ahead of time, they’re probably already looking for space now. It would be nice for this to slowly start to be a source of income for us rather than just a drain. 

I think that means we should get a temporary sign out front with contact info for locals, and for everyone else, we need to get a website going. That way we can put it into google and whatever other online directories, and make it generally findable.   

I started a temporary page, and Evan help built it up, and we parked it at a sub-domain of our current site here: https://eventcenter.orthodoxchurchalbion.org

It’s just a skeleton site for now, there isn’t much we can put there yet except for basic information. We don’t even have any decent pictures yet. But we can continue to add/update it as we go, we just need a contact point for it for now.  

But the thing we need from the onset is a catchy and easy-to-remember name for it, and a matching domain name, separate from the church domain name.  I started with “Ascension Event Center” but I’m not married to it, it was the first name that occurred to me.

I’ve checked a handful that have occurred to me that are still available:
http://www.ascensionevents.org (.com is not available)
http://www.ascensioneventcenter.com
http://www.ascensioneventhall.com

Or we could go in a more generic direction: http://www.albioneventcenter.com is available. Or http://www.albion-event-center.com. And so on.
If you want to check other possibilities, you can check if they’re available at http://www.whois.com.

Jump in if you have any thoughts about this.  We should probably spin it up pretty soon.

If anyone would like to work more on the site, let me know. Besides design stuff, work needs to be done to figure out the rates and forms and procedures and such things for doing rentals.

I like Ascension Event Center. It makes it sound more unique and not just some random event hall associated with the city. I don’t think it needs to be anything fancier than that.

Brooke is having trouble logging, so I’m pasting in her reply below.
(I don’t know why some of you are having trouble logging into this blog, I’ve tried to fix it but it’s still giving people trouble. I can’t get it to fail when I try so I don’t know what else to check… Peter or Evan, if you have any ideas? … )

Brooke:
My thoughts on naming the hall Ascension Event Center is it could be confused with Ascension Ministries (usually just called Ascension), which owns Borgess and several other hospitals in Michigan. Their name is getting stuck all over the place with the heavy rebranding they do when they buy a hospital. If we are going to do advertising, it’s possible it could get confused since Ascension does have locations as close as battle creek. Also, not sure if there are ownership issues on a brand the way they’re is with business names? Don’t know if that works be an issue. Perhaps Holy Ascension Event Center? Or maybe it won’t matter.

Tractor day is shaping up for Tuesday (3/30). The weather looks promising so I arranged for the rental to happen.

If you can come, let me know. Besides Bobcat drivers, anyone who can come would be great. If you can bring/operate a chainsaw, great, but anyone at all to help move brush around and so on would be a help. Or anyone who could bring some lunch/dinner.

The equipment is expensive, so we want to get as much out of it in one day as we can. In particular, if you can drive the bobcat, it would be good for me to know which hours you can be there. The machine is supposed to arrive around 9am, and it gets picked up the next morning, so we’ll run it as long as we have people to drive it, or unless we finish everything.

This is what the machine looks like:
https://carletonequipment.com/products/ftx150-fecon-rental

Need a refresher on how to drive a skid steer?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6crRApG1RAo

Tips on forestry mulching with this machine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZZEN67P-V8

There are several other such videos, go to youtube and search for “driving bobcat forestry mulcher”.

These are the two sconce light fixtures we are considering. You’ll have to zoom in to see them.

I vote for B), seems less fragile to me, and also the glass is closed at the top so no bugs can get in there. 🙂

All the votes I’ve heard (on this blog and off) have been for the second one (B). So we’ll order those.

Kitchen tile nearing completion.
6 windows installed in main hall.
Ceiling done and walls have been painted.

(reposting this with larger pictures).
Here are some pics to help decide on trim stain. I put some of the darker stain on some cardboard strips and tacked them around the window and along the floor as a mockup. It’s a little flatter than it would look on polyurethaned wood, but this is the basic idea.
Other options are lighter (or no) stain.
Or we paint the trim.

That dark stain is pretty dark and the high contrast I think is distracting. I would go with something more neutral or natural.

Rescheduled the tractor/chain-saw day to Tuesday March 30th. Hopefully we’ll have some dry/warm weather by then.

I’ll be there again tomorrow, Tue 3/9, 10-3’ish.
On Wednesday Eleni will be there 9-1pm.

Kitchen:

Using the aforementioned cabinets, I created a kitchen plan, attached a couple pictures.

I figure we’ll use the lower cabinets as pictured, saving two spots for dishwashers.

The upper cabinets are enough for the north wall, and that wall is visible from the main hall, so using the upper cabinets on that wall makes sense to me.

Whereas the other two walls could have wire shelving as pictured, above the sink and above/adjacent-to the serving window.

If you want to look all around the kitchen design beyond the two screenshots attached, you can download the “sweet home 3d” program and the kitchen file for it is here:
https://app.box.com/s/e8n5e64nbzssyttumqad05xv8pg8x3lk

Some recent work pictures attached. You’ll have to zoom in to figure out who is in each picture. 🙂

I’m still trying to find a good look for the outside of the windows, attempt #2 is attached.
My first try just had pvc trim around the whole thing and it looks like crap.
This time I tried two shutters with a 3″ piece of pvc trim along the bottom. Does that work? Does it need something along the top?
Maybe if I made it a bright shade of green? 🙂
Although seriously, do we need more color contrast?
I’m trying to work this out on the backside of the building, so that when I get to the front side, we’ll have something looking half-way decent.

Now that I am seeing them in place, I can’t shake seeing “Home Exterior Fail #10”–https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/home-exterior-fails — shutters that are too small to practically be shutters. Not that we’re using them as such, but once someone pointed this out to me I’ve never been able to see shutters the same way. 😀

I also think the even-ness of the shutters makes the window pane on the left, which is slightly smaller/has a wider frame due to the sliding function, look particularly odd.

Do you have a picture of what it looked like with pvc trim all around? I have an impulse to want an even frame all the way around, but maybe that’s no better. What options would we have for such a frame besides the pvc?

Here’s a pic of the first window with 4″ pvc trim all around.
I suppose it looks OK if maybe I clean up the seams with white caulk.

Peter and I went and looked at the exterior of the windows on Saturday and both think the 4″ PVC trim looks significantly better than the other one. We both see shutters the same way Katie does. 🙂

Mary and Anne also like the 4″ trim all the way around, so we’ll go with that one.
Unless there’s something else I should try? I still have a few on the backside we could experiment with.

I like the trim too. Can we paint the building to up the contrast? With the beautiful wood exterior parts in planning stages, and landscaping down the road…. it would be nice to get a fresh coat on the building before too long. Anyone else think so? I personally love the look of dark blue/dark grey/black with wood beams.

I’m thinking along the lines of the space as attracting wedding bookings and The Black Barn in Rives Junction as inspiration….they are booked two years out and charge over $9k a weekend. It would be nice to be able to offer a lovely space to brides who perhaps don’t have two years to wait or that kind of budget.

I also like the idea of a contrast color for the outside paint, and my first thought was a nice barn red. I really love the red contrast with the green in the summer and the white snow in winter. Theotokos blue also sounds nice. Also, yes, wooden beams.

Ryan and I will be working on ceiling tiles Thursday (3/4) night starting around 7pm. Anyone that wants to join us is welcome.

Great! I won’t be able to be there, so here’s an update: the grid is totally painted all the way to the wall. If you run out of old tiles that we’re using to hold up the insulation, we saved a stack of those boxes the tiles came in which should work as well.
If you run out of those too, or anything else, let me know. (There are only about 6 rows left to do, so I’m not sure if supplies will be enough.)

Peter/Ryan, looks like you used up all in insulation and old-tile, woohoo!
Looks like we’re about 25 grid squares short. I bought over some more insulation that should about cover it. If not, we can start to steal from the kitchen.
I scrounged up some more old tiles and large cardboard boxes, maybe 10 grid squares worth, so probably not enough to finish it off. We’ll have to find something for those last few.

Looks like we’re going to have mud for the foreseeable future, so I’m putting off “tractor day” again until a better opportunity comes along.

Does anyone have any strong opinions about what the tile should look like for the backsplash in the kitchen? I was talking to Father Joshua today and we thought we could go with something similar to what we have in the current church kitchen. I think it’s a good choice since it is fairly timeless.

Something like this:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Daltile-Matte-White-Octagon-Dot-12-in-x-12-in-x-6mm-Ceramic-Mosaic-Floor-and-Wall-Tile-1-sq-ft-piece-65012OCT01CC1P2/100556713?source=shoppingads&locale=en-US#product-overview

Incorporated some comments and suggestions into rendering, attached.
There’s not a lot of options for arches and such in the program I’m using, so don’t take the details too seriously. I figure the whole porch/walkway would have the same arching/curvy design all the way along it, whatever that turns out to be.

New idea from Luke. Instead of a pavilion separated from the building, add it onto the back of the building? mock-up attached.

I think it’s a good idea, but there are a couple things we may want to consider. One is that it will decrease the natural light we would get from the windows/door. It might be a worth while trade off. I can imagine that a “pavilion” attached to the building would get more use than one farther away. Secondly, like you showed in the mock up, the roof pitch would need to match the pitch of the church hall. What’s the pitch of the roof? 3/12? 2/12? If it’s less than 3/12 than doing a traditional timber frame (like we talked about) might be too complicated. The wide length would also require more interior support posts. Also, that would be a really big pavilion. 60 feet wide, right? Would it make sense to make it centered on the building but only 30-40 feet wide?

I’ll have to measure again to be sure, but I think it’s 2/12. The width of the building is 50. If we did go this direction it wouldn’t have to be the whole width, but I think we’d want it to connect to the front porch? So maybe the porch would wrap around the corner and go 5-10 feet and then the pavilion part would start? And leave of 5-10 off on the backside, so yes, it would be 30-40 wide as you mentioned.

Or we wrap the porch all the way along the back wall and leave the pavilion where it is? mock-up attached.

I don’t think it would have to match the pitch, in fact it would probably look better if it didn’t. You’re right it would take some large timber. I’m thinking something like the pavilion at dormition with skylights or a clear ridge cap. Probably better to put it off until we can just purchase the steel beams or structural lumber needed to build something that large.

That’s great! Looks wonderful. Any chance of getting an archway or something beautiful away from the building we could plant climbing flowering plants onto? For Protestant weddings…thinking income.

I have started reaching out to custom mills in Michigan to get price estimates. So far there are two I have been interacting with.

Updates:

Commenting: If you can’t use your google credentials to login to comment, try creating an account for this site using the “login” link in the comment section. Doing so seems to be working reliably for everyone, whereas google, not so much.

Ceiling: today we (Ben, Matthew and I) put in 4 rows of the old tiles with the insulation above them, using 1″ pvc pipes to keep all the weight on the strong rails. See pic. It worked great, so it’s adopted as our final solution until we do the whole thing over 10 years from now! We painted all rails in those rows and installed the tiles we had (20’ish). The rest of the tiles are ordered. Installing the tiles is the easiest part, the arduous work was all the insulation and painting. But now that it’s figured out, it’s just a matter of raw labor that’s needed to finish it.

Lights: Peter, have you found us any ceiling light fixtures? We’re at a point now that we’ll be needing them to keep the ceiling moving.

On wall paint: the official color has been chosen , “alabaster”. Mary and Jena plan to get more of it and start painting some of the walls there in the coming weeks.

I’m planning on being there this Friday, 10am’ish.

Wow, learned something about LED lights today by accident. Many of them come with a selection switch that lets you change the tone/quality of the color of the light any time you want to. So if we got those, we could try out all of tones and then just switch them all to the one we want. And they’re dimmable, so easy to change how bright the room is too. So if they have those two features, then it pretty much doesn’t matter which one we buy except for how it looks in the ceiling.

I just bought one of these to try out:

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-Canless-Color-Choice-Integrated-LED-5-in-or-6-in-65-Watt-EQ-White-Round-Dimmable-Canless-Recessed-DownLight/1001771784

I have been looking at these:

They all fit into a grid ceiling and have a high-ish CRI of 80, and adjustable color/brightness. They are dimmer compatible, but that would require a separate dimmer.

How many lights are in the current ceiling? Some of the calculators say we will need between 25-30 lights depending on our lumen setting to have a good brightness level. We have found LEDs to be a good deal lighter than florescent bulbs, but it may just be that the bulbs are so old.

With all this talk of lighting, I’m wondering if it’s even necessary to replace the current fixtures that are currently in place. There’s a local company called Full Spectrum Solutions that manufactures both fluorescent tubes and LED tubes, which would both produce better quality lighting for the space than what we currently have. Just a thought…

I agree, if we were to use existing fixtures, it would cost significantly less, probably by around 60%. If we wanted to get full power savings we would need to bypass the ballast, which would take about as much effort as installing new lights. The bulb that Full Spectrum Solutions sells has 5000k light, so that would be super white. We could probably get the soft white temperature we want from another local brick and mortar shop: http://www.mcgowanelectric.com or menards. It would cost ~$500 and be a significant improvement over current lighting. The only drawbacks are that we wouldn’t get the flexibility/features that the adjustable ones have and the current fixtures are still ugly 2X4. The square ones don’t seem quite as institutional.

Good points, Peter. The square ones would also match the aesthetic of the new ceiling panels, which appear more square, the way they’re designed.

thanks Peter!

Both of those you posted had the same link behind them, pointing to the first one.
I think this is the link to the second one, the Lithonia light.

I like the look of the smaller round lights in our new tiles. But those seem to have far too few lumens, we’d have to install like 150 of them, and it would take years because each tile would have be cut and each light suspended above the tile, and each light separately wired, etc.

The 2x2s that you posted have a much more reasonable amount of lumens, and since they already fit into the grid, minimal work to do. I don’t think they are quite as nice looking as the round ones, but weighing it against the work/time/$ of the round ones, they are the clear winner. I’m thinking we should pick one from those you posted (or similar) and try it out. I’ll look some more at them….

BTW, to answer your question, the hall has 25 2×4 lights right now. That’s 25×8=200 square feet of lighting.

How to translate that to LED fixtures for the room?

I tried a lumens per room calculator here.
Room-type=”party hall”
width=50, length=60, height=10.
Illumination intensity=medium. Wall-color=light. Light-placement=center.

It recommended 167226 lumens for the whole room. That’s about 40’ish of those lights, or about 40×4=160 square feet of lighting. Which sounds about right to me going from florescent to LED.

I bought all 3 models of 2×2 LED lights from Menards to try them all out, figuring I can return those we don’t want.

Once I had them in hand, this one was the clear winner:

https://www.menards.com/main/storeAvailability.html?iid=1552030170433&yard=3151

It has the most lumens for the size (4200). It’s light and easy to wire. It looks good (as good as this kind of thing can look anyway). It has all 5 colors available.

What I couldn’t figure out from any websites was *how* you’d switch between the colors to make that ability in any way practical. Using a remote like those on amazon seemed pretty unlikely to work reliably and it was rather complicated, and we’d have to keep track of multiple remotes.

The other fixtures I bought had switches for the color switching, but they were all up in the guts of the fixture, so you’d have to push the fixture up into the ceiling and find the switch in order to change it.

On this fixture though, there’s an unnoticeable small button on the edge and all you have to do is keep pressing it to get to the color you want. So the whole room could be changed over in 5 minutes without having to get into the ceiling by anyone who can manage to push a button.

If we err on the max end of what we might need in brightness (40 foot-candles), according to Peter’s calculator, we’d need 33 of these. So maybe we get 36 of them as then it would be an even 6 rows x 6 rows evenly spaced fixtures, and we’d for sure not have to worry about having too few. If we have too too many, we can dim them down, but if we have too few, we’d have to add more and then change the spacing and move them all again, etc. 🙁

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Thank you so much for all the work on the lighting. It is clear you have done your homework. Are there any pictures you could point to with what those square ones would look like in combination with our ceiling tile? I have only ever seen the round ones that come in the middle of tiles. I was personally looking for a radical departure from industrial/office lights that remind me of working in a cubicle 😉 and am a little nervous about the square ones but perhaps since we can adjust the quality of the light it won’t have that industrial feel.

I’ll bring one to the building on Friday and put it in and take a picture. The 2×2 size, as well as the flat pattern and color, makes them much better than the 2×4 cold florescent that we have now. I think it’s the color more than the shape that makes them industrial feeling? Not sure. But they still are not nearly as nice looking as the round kind mounted in the tiles. But I can’t find any of those bright enough. At 850 lumens each, we would need 175 to match the 35 square lights. (it’s a high ceiling, which increases the lumens we need).

We could also punt. We could leave what we have there for now and circle back to this later. Even the 36 I suggested isn’t a small amount of work, and I’m not sure if there’s the labor to get even the ceiling done soon enough so that we can move onto other things.

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Pictures attached. I tried to take one of each color flavor, and with other lights on/off, but I think the pics are mostly useless.

If anyone wants to get a good sense for it, you probably have to stop by and take a look. I left it installed on the right side of the room, there is a plug hanging down next to an outlet to turn it on. Then there is a small button on the fixture itself to change the colors.

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175 lights! Yowzers! I stopped by today. The light you have up looks much better than I feared 🙂 and way better than the florescents already there

Tractor and chainsaw day(s) – Feb 23, March 3rd.

For your calendars: Tue Feb 23rd, or Wednesday March 3rd (if Feb 23rd falls through).

We’re going to rent a “forestry” machine to gobble up all the brush around the property, and create paths around the perimeter and wherever else we can. And Billy will bring his load/backhoe to help. (anyone else want to bring a tractor?) If anyone has a chainsaw that they could bring, that would also be great, the more the merrier. And really anyone at all who can help would be appreciated, there will be all sorts of branches/trees/etc/ to move around. Or even helping with some lunch/dinner for whomever comes would be good.

We need the ground to be frozen and for there to not be much snow on the ground. If those conditions aren’t met well reschedule to March 3rd.

We’d like to keep the expensive machine running the whole time, so anyone who can drive a bobcat skid steer (or backhoe or whatever) and is willing to take a shift, let me know what times you can be there.

Thanks!

I chatted with an architect for a long time on Friday, he gave me some ideas on how to make the building be more inviting without a ton of investment. I tried to mock it up in that sweet-home software, attached to this post.

I like the canopy–especially if, as we’d discussed, we built a colonnade/covered walkway between the hall and the new church.

Wendy pointed me to some really great (and free) software for designing floor plans, it’s called “SweetHome 3D.” So here is the floor plan for the building as it is now. (it’s the west side of the building, nothing much to draw for the large room on the east side)

(Peter, can this plugin be tweaked to allow me to post more than a single imagine with a post?)

I used the software to play with some ideas of what we might want to do with it. Here’s an idea that would make the bathrooms ADA (wheelchair) compliant, and add an office, classroom, library, and such things.

Ceiling tiles

We talked about replacing the ceiling tiles in the large room.

Every time I start a new project it seems I have to readjust my thinking of what
materials cost. And it seems that the prices really gone through the roof in the last year, even more than normal.

The room is 3000 square feet, and we were hoping to get a “nice looking” tile, rather than just the usual fare like is there now or in our current basement. I was thinking that would come in easily under 5K, but not at all. After looking for a long time, the only “nice” ceiling tile I could find under 5K was the same one Mary Cline found after about 5 minutes of looking, this one:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/From-Plain-To-Beautiful-In-Hours-Economy-2-ft-x-4-ft-PVC-Lay-in-Ceiling-Tile-Pack-80-sq-ft-box-232uw-24X48-10p/315013448?

Comes in around 4K. They are PVC, so they won’t buckle with humidity, or get moldy, etc. They look great, but they have the downside of being really slim material, so we wouldn’t be able to set anything on top of them. But the way the current ceiling is, there isn’t enough insulation up in the roof, so it depends on batts of insulation resting on the ceiling. So that’s not an option with these tiles.

I called the manufacturer, the guy said many customers, after installing these panels, take their old tiles and turn them sideways (so that they rest on the grid) and then put insulation batts on top of those. Sounds reasonable. I ordered a sample to try out if that will work out. (Plus, the manufacturer told me we could get a deal if we order directly from him.)

Lighting:

We talked about getting some nice LED lights for this ceiling, but we’ll need to make sure they rest on the frame of the grid (and not on the tile). Also, would someone like to figure out what kind of “color rendering” we need, and how many lumens we should get per square feet? (the ceiling is 10′ tall), that is, how many fixtures total we should get and how they should be spaced.

But there are also wall lights, which could be used at events for a softer ambient atmosphere, so we’d want to pick the right color/brightness for those as well. But I mention it here because the overhead lights don’t have to fill both of those roles, they can just be the bright everyday coffee-hour kind of use.

Looking at panel lights that are the same size as the ceiling tiles. I am leaning towards the middle range of color/brightness as too white makes it feel too institutional. I’ll stop by the building and get a count of current lighting fixtures and see what we have to work with. Based on a basic calculator it shouldn’t be too hard to get good lighting in there.

Hey Peter,
It’s a 3000 square ft room (50×60).
We don’t necessarily need to get lights that fit into the 2×4 grid. We can use half tiles and get 2×2 fixtures.
Or we can even mount fixtures through the ceiling tile that are not meant for the grid, by backing them with a board behind the tile.
They can also stick down a bit under the grid an inch or two if that looks nicer or spreads the light better.

I installed a cell signal booster today. Before, as soon as you stepped into the building, your cell phone cut out, because all the outside walls are metal. But now when you step inside the signal actually increases, because the booster antenna is at the top of the old TV antenna, so it has a clear shot to the mobile towers.
Works great with Verizon and tmobile/sprint/ting, but I don’t have any way to test ATT. If anyone has ATT service, let me know if it works inside next time you’re at the building.

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