The Install

Last week Rob and Kurt took on a 2-day lighting install project at a local church. Simple enough. The goal was to light up the platform for a weekend concert but still have permanent lights in place for the future. No problem. Unfortunately, due to unforseen circumstances, it ended up taking up the better parts of 5 days!!

Before the install even started, these steel pipes had to be cut and welded. . .

. . . and painted. . .

. . . and delivered to the church. . .

. . . so they could be installed in the ceiling:

We had pre-ordered the lights so they came in in plenty of time. Unfortunately, the only color quickly available was black and the church wanted white so Kurt and Rob used a high-heat spray paint late, late, late one evening and gave them a beautiful new coat. . . :

The six lights were installed very carefully on the new bars in the ceiling:

They turned out really nice:

So, although all of that was time consuming and hard work, the REAL challenge was in the wiring. . .

All of the wires had to be run from the outlets in the ceiling above the lights. . .

. . . through the attic . . .

. . . down the wall at the back of the sanctuary. . .

. . . through the newly installed conduit. . .

. . . and into this custom-built dimmer rack:


The guys spent long hours on the other side of this crawl space. . .

Hours and hours . . .

. . . and hours. . .

To the guys, it was excruciating, back-breaking work. . . to Gloria, it was just another adventure. . .

Gloria did, however, play a very important role in finishing up the project. The wires had to be run under the floor in the sound booth and up into the switches that are connected to the dimmer rack. Gloria fit perfectly into the little crawl space and was very happy to help out:

These pictures were taken sight-unseen by holding the camera down under the floor, pointing into the crawl space:

I should probably check into the child-labor laws. . . or not. . .

Everything turned out just great in the end and worked perfectly:

In this business, you just never know what the next day will bring. . .