Next week our renovations wrap up, with only a few eleventh hour deadlines still to be met. These include the arrival of the new chairs (slated for Monday or Tuesday), the replacement of all the light bulbs in the church and chapel (including one defective spotlight), the installation of the new cabinets in the sacristy, […]
Worshipers this Sunday will be unable to wander the church. The flooring in the narthex and in the hallways will have received their protective sealant so those areas will be out-of-bounds. Which is too bad. Because the recent progress has been stunning. The finishing touches have been applied to the church and chapel, including the […]
Renovation Corner #’s As we prepare to close the file on the renovations here are some numbers you might find interesting: 10 The number of years we have been studying what to do with our ageing buildings. 3 The number of years the Building Renewal Action Group (BRAG) has been meeting to plan and coordinate […]
We have our dates! We expect to see the completion of the renovations within the first week in November, followed by our occupancy permit by November 15. This means we can begin moving back into our church, chapel and creation space (the former Nazareth and Bethlehem Rooms) the weekend of the 17th. Here are some […]
Activity is increasing around the church these days as renovations approach completion. The finishing millwork in the church and chapel will be done this week, including the reinstallation of the altar rails in the chapel and the refitting of the main altar frontispiece into the reredos. The control boards for both the new sound system […]
This week it is fair to say we are almost there. Two weeks to completion, then a week or two for signing off and receiving an occupancy permit from the city, then we’re back in business. Enmax has disconnected the old electrical service and powered up the new one. The elevator is essentially complete and […]
As people are taking a peek and getting the feel for our new worship space some are curious about how it is going to work exactly. However we want it to work, would be our answer, flexibility being the key concept. If you examine the positioning of the new, overhead, theatre lighting you will see […]
One of the goals of our renovation project is to make St. Stephen’s more welcoming and accessible, both for ourselves and for the wider community. But you wouldn’t know that these days! Our outdoor entrance to the Canterbury Room door has now been removed, leaving in its place a fenced-off mess hole. We are also […]
It is interesting how, the closer we get to completion, an entirely new set of questions, challenges and opportunities presents itself. For instance, how ought we officially to open the new space? The opening date, not surprisingly, is being pushed back now to early November. While the church itself should be ready before that, the […]
Our Building Renewal Action Group (BRAG) continues to work at the Art of the Possible, trying to manage what remains of the project without incurring any debt. Generous donations continue coming in, which is very encouraging, but still we continue to remove things from our To Do list to place them on our Wish List. […]