Ch . . . ch . . . ch . . . changes

Virginia City has a history fetish. They have tightly controlled sign ordinances, building ordinances, sidewalk ordinances, even (I think) clothing ordinances. All of these are in the name of "Preserving Our History."

You may recall that I received an award from the Virginia City Preservation Alliance shortly after I arrived here for "not making any changes to the building." This was, I am sure, a not so subtle hint that I was NOT to mess with their sense of history or go making changes willy nilly.

Well, after 104 years, it's time for some changes.

It started with working towards new carpet. It included finding something useful to do with the old carpet, as well as other stuff.

That other stuff came about because if we are going to replace the carpet, as someone on the vestry mentioned, we really need to paint the walls and refinish the floors. So we worked on an entire refurbishing project.

After spending a good year finding the perfect carpet, we managed to line up a painter and refinisher in fairly short order. The schedule looks something like this:

May 19: Contractor to paint the choir and sanctuary sections of the church
May 25: Move pews
May 27: Contractor to paint the nave of the church
June 2: Contractor to refinish floors
June 7: Replace pews and clear out choir and sanctuary
June 9: Contractor to install carpet
June 14: Replace choir and sanctuary items
June 15: First service in the refinished building

Of course, now that I've scheduled all of this, one of my contractors is going to die in the middle of the project.

I am NOT going to get any sleep for the next month.