Sometimes you can spend hours and hours working and everything still looks like a crazy mess or a horribly long process that will never be completed. At least this week was not like that.
I have worked many hours in the shop trying to be the best assistant I can to our DS/Pastor/Project Coordinator/Fix everything guy. This week the task was to prepare for the floor guy and the painter. Both were coming on Friday. Since we have a floor with more waves than the California cost and spots with a drop so dangerous it could be part of the Mavericks surf tournament, we had a lot of prep work to do before the floor guy came to lay the foundation layer. And so the entire week was spent laying a geometrical nightmare of plywood to create a level and stable foundation. Of course with my illogical mind this whole process looked like one confusing mess to me. It became my job to help lift and move boards and to make sure they were screwed down well. Along the way I also did some small finishing tasks to the walls.
Finally after many, many hours of labor, cleaning, and preparing I met the floor guy Friday morning and this time he went to work. After we spent days ripping six layers of carpet, wood, and cement flooring out, it's kind of defeating to watch almost that many layers being put back on. Well, not on every part of the floor but on some of the lowest parts. Still it makes you think why didn't we just stop at the first layer of carpet. That would have saved us a lot of work. Well, most often it takes a lot of work to do a job right. We will now have an even floor throughout the shop and there is not the threat of the floor breaking beneath us anymore. So, yes all of that work may have been hard and long and set us back on our time schedule, but we will be able to guarantee that our customers won't fall through the floor. And even though it does not have the final flooring on it, it does look like a beautiful glassy sea instead of a coast line.
Friday evening I also met the painter and left him to spray the first primer layer. I am so excited to walk into the shop on Saturday and see how bright the white makes it. Also, I am excited that the amount of dust in the shop has dropped enormously.
So this week we see progress because it is beginning to look like a building we can use instead of a construction site (as long as you don't look in the kitchen, bathrooms, or storage rooms).
Yes, there has been a lot of sweat, blood, and tears (I really did start to cry when the vacuum cleaner died on me with still half the shop to go). Like anything in life it takes getting some bruises and shedding some tears to grow to a better place. :)
