Another week has passed, and we have wrapped up the Maranatha project redoing 34 rooms in Rees Hall, the girls’ dorm at Union College.  We have spent the last three weeks ripping out the desks/dressers and bookshelves out of the rooms, as well as light fixtures, electrical outlets and more.  We were simultaneously turning big piles of beautiful wood into beautiful and strong cabinets and bookcases.  So we manufactured 68 of the cabinets, involving a total of 340 drawers, and 68 bookcases.  Solid oak face frames and drawer fronts not only look great, but should last forever.

I could show you hundreds of pictures, taken by the Maranatha team leaders, and some more that I shot, but I’ll spare you that.

Here is one of the best rooms pre-renovation.

And here is what it looks like with new flooring and cabinets…  OK, my picture with the lap drawers in and the baseboard placed is not uploading… hopefully soon!

Here are a few shots of work in the shop:

Parts started multiplying and taking up lots of space!

Units had to be moved a lot just to find spots for new ones to be stained and lacquered.

Then all the finished furniture had to be taken across campus and up to the third and fourth floors!  Thankfully they used a SkyJack to lift them all up and through a window opening.  Here is a load of drawers being sent up.

Of course there was a ton of cleaning to be done… Here’s Kathy going above and beyond by vacuuming a part of the shop… note the spot in the lower left that she hasn’t gotten to yet!

Obviously, the most important job of all was feeding all 100+ volunteers!  Cherryl worked in the cafeteria to aid the otherwise small summertime kitchen crew giving us wonderful food.  Really!

There is supposed to be a nice picture of Cherryl in the kitchen here, but it’s not uploading either!  ARGGG!

To close out the week, I’ll show you a few more pictures of the campus:

Our “home” is just beyond the tennis courts…

This is a nice little water feature outside the Krueger Science building: