The New Wing is Nearing Completion

The boys have focused on getting the stack room completed so that we can begin to assemble bookcases soon.  Thus, the texture coating and painting are completed, and the electricians are hard at work installing light fixtures, outlets, and switch plates in the stack room.  When they are finished, we can begin to assemble bookcases and then move books to clear the old wing for its renovation.  Meanwhile, a little more texture coating and all the painting awaits in the research room, the fireplace room, the storeroom, and entryway.  And the bookcase work continues.

Part of the exterior is getting a plaster surface instead of brick.

We'll have plenty of light when the electricians finish their work.  See the nice texture on the walls and ceiling and their color.

Jean, Gary, and Emily sanding, sanding, sanding . . . .

We have several hundred powder-coated steel bookshelves, and each must have a strip of molding applied to its front edge.  Here's the set up for that work.  From left to right:  The molding strip with its unfinished backside; clamps; the wooden jig to hold the shelf upright; and on the jig is a blue tube of en expensive glue that glues anything to anything; and in the jig is the shelf.  The bottle on the right contains acetone that is applied to the rag in the lower right corner to clean the surfaces of the shelf and molding before gluing them together.

The molding strip is glued and clamped to the edge of the shelf and allowed to set about 30-60 minutes.  We have enough clamps to do six shelves, one after another, but see the previous blog to see how many shelves need to be done.  If all were placed end to end, they would equal one-half mile, or 560 total shelves!  (That's also a half mile of molding that had to be cut to length, sanded, stained, and varnished with 3 coats of Varathane!)

The Storm after the Lull

Although the bookcase building has been going right on schedule, building construction progress slowed over the past couple weeks because of scheduling, miscommunications, and inspections, but here we go again.  The dry wallers got back to work with some cool tools that allow just one person to mud and tape all the joints in just one day.  Very impressive!!

Jim caught Art in the act of sanding one of the panels that will support the computer bench.

About 300 bookshelves, each neatly wrapped in butcher paper, are piled up here waiting to be unwrapped, have a strip of red oak molding glued to one edge, rewrapped, and stored back in this room until the book cases are assembled. 

George is using a remarkable tool that applies mud and tape simultaneously to the cracks between the sheet rock panels.  Before he could start, the dry walling had to be inspected to see that the nail spacing accords with City building code.

Shortly after mudding and taping, George smooths the tape and removes excess mud with a wide blade putty knife.  He has another tool to cover the nails.  This fellow really knows what he's doing and takes great pride in his work.