Church Restoration Update #7

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We recently received an update from the contractor restoring our beloved, historic stained glass windows that the last remaining set has unfortunately been delayed. 

While Gaytee-Palmer’s team continues to be hard at work re-leading the windows from our east wall, the work has proved to be more difficult than anticipated. 

As it turns out, our windows are quite unique to the area and very different from the other stained glass found in the Archdiocese. 

As a result, we are now not anticipating the final set of windows to be reinstalled until the end of this year at the earliest.

In the meantime, you can see that we’ve decided to reinstall the remaining pews in the church so that we’ll be at full capacity until the windows are ready to be reinstalled. 

At that time we’ll again temporarily remove the pews on the far east end of the nave to facilitate the re-installation of the windows. 

While we all grow ever more eager for our beautiful, 101-year-old parish church to be restored again to its full grandeur, it’s helpful for me to remember that the good stewarding of a once-in-several-lifetimes project requires prudence — and especially patience.

Just as the first parishioners of Nativity of Our Lord worshiped in less-than-ideal circumstances while they awaited the completion of the initial construction of their new parish church, so we are now invited to sacrifice in this small way for the benefit of the future generations of this holy place who will come long after us.

(Speaking of 101 year-old-churches, while we did experience a roof leak in the church a few weeks ago, that issue was in the realm of “normal” maintenance — unrelated to the tuckpointing project — and has since been remedied.)

Thank you all for your continued patience, and may God bless you and your family this week and always.

Fr. Rolf Tollefson

Pastor of Nativity of Our Lord
 

May 28, 2023

Scaffolding tear-down is set to begin Monday, June 12, and all of the scaffolding will be removed, except what’s in the sanctuary and in the west side of the choir loft. 

On or around that same time, Gaytee-Palmer will reinstall the stained glass in those areas. When that’s finished, they will begin the re-installation of the rest of the windows using scissors lifts.

Beginning Monday, July 10 we hope to begin removing the remaining scaffolding.  Re-installation of the pews will begin as the window install allows, with the goal to have the entire project wrapped up by end of July 2023.
 

Sunday, May 7, 2023

Progress on the church project continues forward!  

Our stonemasons finished their work on the window restoration at the end of March. The plasterers then took over the use of the scaffold and did a great job tackling the blistering and bubbling plaster and completed all of their work at the end of April.  

The painters are now finishing up their work and expect to be done by this Friday, May 12. Once the painters are done, we will remove the scaffolding in anticipation of the stained glass contractors working off their scissors lifts. 

Our stained glass contractors have been busy at their studio re-leading the stained glass. They should be returning to the campus in the next couple of weeks to start the process of reinstalling the stained glass in our windows.  

The project has been humming along quite nicely, and I would like to thank all of our professional contractors for their fine work.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank the Friday afternoon volunteers who have been coming in each week and preparing the worship space for parish use each weekend. 

Special thanks goes out to:

• Louise Roth
• Mary Fiedler
• Lisa Hambidge
• Susan Sonnen
• Rosemary Garrity
• Laurie Murphy
• Barb Bowman

Sunday, March 31, 2023

The stone masons have been working hard on the east side scaffolding, restoring the stone around the windows. They are almost done with the east windows and will be moving to the west side and choir loft windows as a full crew soon. 

Plasterers have been working on the lower level and will be moving onto the scaffolding to begin the wall work on the east side later this week.

Painters are right on the heels of the plasterers and are caught up with everything that is available to do. 

Meanwhile, our stained glass contractor reports continued progress on their painstaking, detailed work of re-leading the stained glass. 

All in all, things are progressing along as planned!

Sunday, March 5, 2023

We continue to have lots of progress on the church restoration project.

The northwest and southwest stairwells, St. Joseph Marian chapels, the main entrance, and the east and west side aisles are complete and have had the stone repaired, plaster repaired, and painting completed where needed. 

In fact, the stone masons are now done with everything that is a “ground floor-reachable” area, and have moved up onto the scaffolding to begin the extensive stone repair on the large windows on the east side of the building.

Meanwhile, the plasterers continue to progress with the areas of disrepair in the northeast entrance and will be also be moving up onto the scaffolding soon as well.

The painters continue to work on areas that are ready and have completed the west and east side aisles of the Church.

They will move to other areas as they become available to do so, and the southeast stairwell and sanctuary walls will be completed soon.

Scaffolding will continue to be installed until we have our stained glass returned to the windows at the end of the project.
 

Monday, February 27, 2023

The Church reconstruction project is going very well, and the crews have made great progress together so far. Special thanks is in order for Steve Boatman’s hard work and adept coordination, as well as the multiple expert contractors collaborating to restore our beautiful, historic sanctuary and worship space.

Scaffolding is now installed on the altar and is otherwise ahead of schedule, with a target of February 28 to be fully installed.

Gaytee-Palmer, our stained glass contractor, has now removed all stained glass windows that need reinforcement, and is now performing the re-leading process.

American Masonry has completed the “from the ground” stonework and is now utilizing the scaffolding to work on the windows of the altar.

Pinnacle Wall has completed repairs of the southwest stairwell and the Mary and Joseph chapels. They have now moved into the northeast stairwell and will then head into the west choir loft alcove, before eventually moving onto the scaffolding.

JB Nelson Painting has finished the southwest stairwell and will move next to the Joseph and Mary chapels, followed by the west side aisle.

Friday, January 6, 2023

We are pleased to announce the restoration of the interior of church building will begin in earnest this Monday, January 9. 

Perhaps you noticed the plastic was removed from the east windows over Christmas. Now, construction crews will be moving into the nave, installing scaffolding and repairing the damage done from decades of weathering. 

As such, daily Masses (Monday-Friday) will move downstairs to Steiner Hall temporarily (and won't be livestreamed), and some of the entrances will be closed as needed. Keep an eye out for on-site signage informing church attendees where to go upon arrival.

Finally, due to construction work in the Heritage Room beginning this week, the January relics will not be put on display in 2023.

Thank you for your patience throughout!