Our story so far: A new phase of construction arrived with spring as we renovated a 126-year-old Methodist church into our home.

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The renovation phases in our project didn’t always have clearly defined beginnings and endings. Phase One, demolition, clearly began the day we purchased the church, but it continued into the mechanicals phase and beyond as we discovered new walls, windows and cubbies that required dismantling before we installed something new.

Similarly, Phase Three of drywall, paint and flooring began as soon as the drywallers finished demoing the sanctuary ceiling. They immediately drywalled and painted it, and the ceiling simply overlooked all the work being done during Phase Two of framing and mechanicals.

But we treasured a clear marker at the end of framing and mechanicals. The building inspector officially approved our rough-in. Approval! This was necessary in order to proceed with covering the studded walls which contained all the precious and expensive—but unimaginative—plumbing, wiring and HVAC ducting. Finally, the dirty demolition phase and boring mechanicals phase were behind us. Let the fun begin!

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Tomorrow: Measures of our success. Read about them here.