Friends, I have sat down to write various updates at points over the last two months since my last post, but each time I did so, I was waylaid by the numerous pressing issues facing the church as we navigated Stewardship planning, Advent worship, and Christmas preparations.

My tardiness in posting was mitigated slightly by a less than ideal delay in getting our inspections through the City of Flint in a timely fashion; that said, we have passed all of our mid-cycle inspections and it’s been BUSY in the Pipe these past couple weeks. I can’t wait to show you some of the exciting progress we’ve made.

Spoiler alert: We’ve got progress reports, before and after shots, and even some pics of a very cool robot technician who paid us a visit this week.

Progress Report

First, let me give you a birds-eye view of where we are at with the scope of our renovation work in our lower level.

The past two months have been filled with really just a single word: drywall. Since passing our electrical, plumbing, and mechanical inspections, we are busy hanging, taping, and mudding drywall which has been exciting to see go up. Each day this past week we had 20-25 carpenters and workers getting what seems to be thousands of panels of drywall up onto the studs. As I write this, I have been informed that this coming week we will see 35 workers on site every day this week.

It’s dusty and wild, but the room is looking magnificent.

Over the next two weeks, we are hopeful to finish all of the drywall in the entire space, and to start getting finish carpentry underway, casework (cabinets, etc) installed, countertops measured and installed, and the “Tetris” seating (a very cool seating area) framed in.

Priming and painting will begin in the first week of February and by that point, we will be finished with all of the massive lead-time trade work. Whew!

2. Before + afters

When I last wrote to you, we had just received permission to start installing the metal stud frames for the new interior walls of the space. Back then, the entrance to the gathering area of the main space looked like this (below).

Here’s that same picture today.

Here’s another shot from a different spot along the west wall of the Pipe back in November (below).

And that same shot today.

Here’s a quick pair of videos showing the progress in the main gathering space.

We continue to be grateful to God for the safety of all of the workers who labor in this space and we pray that the remainder of the project will be completed without any complication.

3. A VISIT FROM A ROBOT!

This past week we were visited by a very neat robotic tool which prints detailed architectural plans directly to scale on the floor of a space. This tool assists the various trades in planning out how they will tackle complicated jobs including flooring layout, ceiling-height HVAC, plumbing, or electrical runs, or measuring for lights or anchor points for drop ceiling features.

Because our “sport court” area includes a space marked for various sports by lines, we made the decision not to tape or paint those lines on but to use precision cut LVT pieces in a two-tone pattern to contrast the floor and the lines. The robot enabled us to draw directly on the floor the exact size, shape, and curvature of those special sections and laying out the floor now becomes immensely easier.

Here’s some shots of the robot in action.