The first step, as work began early Monday morning, was to erect a giant fort, impenetrable and intimidating to behold.. No not really, but it does do a pretty good job keeping the dust contained. This would have been a dream-come-true for me as a child. Even now I have to hold myself back from climbing all over it.
Once this was done, the boys (Dan and Frank) got down to business, clearing away all the old plaster that had sustained water damage. Plaster in old churches, I came to learn, is actually quite thick. Ours is about 1.5 inches throughout most of it, and unlike what I thought of as mostly fluffy or light-weight filler, in fact, has a consistency similar to that of concrete. So anyways.. here we see Dan looking over his handy/destruction work.
One of the reasons that this job is a tough one, aside from the fact that it covers a large area and is done always at least 20 feet in the air is the decorative molding that comes down the main line. You can see above how they have had to cut it back significantly to make sure that what is left is completely solid... I wonder how in the world they will go about fixing that decorative molding?? Read on tomorrow to find out!