Keeping It Together

You may have noticed a large white van parked near the side door to the Library lately and perhaps even seen someone carrying rather large pieces of lumber into the building.  The project this time was not quite as obvious as the remake of the 2nd-floor children's  room a few month ago, although the same carpenter, Conrad, was doing the work. 

When the children's room was redone, a number of structural flaws were discovered.  For example, there were places in the ceiling of the children's room--a.k.a. the floor of the attic--where earlier workers had cut deeply into beams.  Conrad was able to fix these problems by adding steel plates to keep the cut ends of the beams together. 

But another problem was not solved so easily.  The upper walls of the Manse were beginning to lean away from each other. This required installation of new joists to correct.  It could not simply be solved as part of the children's room reconstruction. 

We had engineers determine what needed to be done, and the Library asked several construction companies for bids.  When we got the bids in, Conrad was lowest and also by now the Library had come to trust his work.  The next problem was how to pay for the new joists.  The children's room reconstruction was almost completed funded by a grant from the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, but we had no grant this time.  Furthermore, we did not think it completely safe to wait until the Building Expansion committee, which has been exploring grants of all kind, found an appropriate "angel."  So the Library has dipped into its savings set aside for capital improvement and paid Conrad to do the work. Meanwhile, there are various other improvements needed, although none quite so pressing, and both the Friends of the Pleasant Valley Library and the Building Expansion Fund Raising Committee are seeking the cash to make those improvements. But the major expansion that is needed seems is so far being funded by donations to the Community Foundation of Dutchess County, which I urge all the readers of the blog to assist.