Gilbert Temple Painting

Friday, September 6, 2013

What a week!  It is finally time to do the Gilbert Temple Job after having been pushed back three times!  As I got ready a week ago to come, it almost didn’t seem real!  Amanda and I mixed product back in June, thinking we were coming in July and I’ve been buying product and supplies since January so it’s great to finally get the stuff out of my basement.

Monday we drove down.  Everyone met at the house at 6:15am…bright and early!  Camron agreed to come down for the first week to make sure things were running smoothly, help with moving scaffolding and getting our temporary help set up.  I was especially grateful he was driving the van as just before the Beaver Exit he pulled over to the side of the road.  We stopped as well wondering what was wrong.  One of the tires on the van was splitting and Camron said we needed to find a tire shop.  Literally as he pulled into the bay at the tire shop, the tire went flat.  The tender mercies and watchful care of the Lord had already begun.  With the speed we had been going and the way the van was loaded so heavy, Camron believes that if the tire had a blow out on the freeway, the van very easily could have rolled.  I’m so grateful I wasn’t driving it and that we were watched over and protected!

The drive wasn’t bad until about Prescott /Sedona area and then traffic started to look like we were coming in to LA.  It about drove us all crazy…slow, stop and go for the last couple of hours.  We were all so happy just to arrive.  But alas, our arrival wasn’t all warm and fuzzy as it should have been when arriving at a vacation home (best deal in town for our group to stay at…about $23/day per person).  We realized that nothing had been cleaned from the last group…dirty sheets, dirty towels, dirty house.  Not exactly what we wanted to come in to after driving for 13 hours.I talked with the home owner who was embarrassed and mad and said we’d get our $250 cleaning deposit back.  But that night we had to change our own sheets, clean our own bathrooms and do some work instead of relaxing.

I thought “at least we’re getting the problems over with right off.”  Little did I know what Tuesday would bring?  And yet with the experience I’ve had with temple projects, I should know that the unexpected always happens!

Tuesday morning we had to be on-site at 6am for the contractor orientation.  5:45am was pretty early since we’d traveled so far the day before. We had to sit through a boring 30 minute video, but then received our official sticker for our hard hats that showed we went through orientation.  Then we went up to the third floor of the temple where we met Buddy and were shown which rooms to start in.  We were all excited to get going and started to tape, but immediately noticed that the walls were NOT in good shape.

In the past we have come in to immaculate dry wall and painting…some of the nicest ever seen.  This was not the case here!  They had brush strokes through all the edges, divits, holes, gouges, chunky caulk…not temple worthy!  I pointed out a few problems to the contractor and asked what he wanted me to do?  He was pretty indecisive.  After looking over all the walls in all seven sealing rooms, I said they had to be fixed since my contract says I will inspect prior work and then be responsible for the walls once I start my work.  The walls were definitely not good enough to want to approve them. So Tuesday we pulled off the job while the painters were called in immediately to basically start over on our surfaces.

In addition, I was surprised to find that the outside areas around the inset panels in each room were painted the color that I had requested as the base for our faux.  So I mentioned that I was pretty sure those areas were supposed to be a different color since we weren’t painting them.  Then to my surprise, the contractor said that we “were supposed to paint them.”  That sent me into a bit of a panic mode since the only thing I bid were the inset panels, NOT all the walls in all these rooms! Thankfully I’ve since found the email from a year ago where they sent me the elevations I was supposed to bid (exactly as I thought…insets only).  I’m not sure when or where along the way they thought otherwise.  So, we’re in the process of bidding the rest for a possible return trip.  We’ll see whether they want to pay for faux or for plain paint.  J

On a brighter note, the architects were on-site yesterday when we had one large sealing room completely done and they LOVE our finish!  They would like to do it everywhere instead of having the plain paint.  Meanwhile we are making great progress!  Everyone is doing such a great job!  Heidi Sorenson and Patti Emery are working with us for their first temple job.  Poor Heidi was stressing pretty bad when we first started.  I could see it and knew exactly what she was going through since that is what Kim, Vicky and I experienced in El Salvador.  The weight of possibly “messing up” in the temple.  I put my arm around Heidi and told her not to stress because I had already done it for all of us more than once.  She has done a terrific job!

So the adventures continue.  Hopefully week two will start off a little more smoothly!  We are almost finished with all seven sealing rooms and will move down to the second floor tomorrow to start on the Veil Halls and Celestial room.  The C-room is incredible!  The details and height is staggering!  40 feet in the air and we will be up there painting walls.  Thankfully they plan to put us in a lift with an operator so we won’t hit anything we shouldn’t.  Should be an adventure!  Unfortunately they are being super funny about taking any pictures on-site at all…even outside the temple, so you’ll all have to look up http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/gilbert/construction/ to see photos.

Alicyn