Computer room redux

The kitchen is back to normal. For over a week at Clearwater the computer room was closed for a serious overhaul. All the computers and furniture was removed. The carpet was torn up, the baseboards pulled off, the concrete floor beneath stripped of linoleum, washed and re-sealed, and given some fresh layers of paint. Meanwhile, nearly all online gaming migrated (via laptops) into the kitchen. 

"It is so loud in here!" Meghan said to me one afternoon in the kitchen, as we looked over at the six students gathered around four laptops playing and watching a multiplayer game. It was indeed loud; there were yells of alarm or triumph as foes advanced or were routed, and a general atmosphere of noisy camaraderie. But it was even louder in the computer room, where Gregory was working by himself (sometimes) with a machine that looked like a lawn mower and felt (according to Gregory, who used it a lot) like a jackhammer to operate. It sounded like a jackhammer too. It included a wide blade that pried up the linoleum. The flooring came up in broken strips that looked like thick pieces of peeling paint. It was slow going; the linoleum had been there a long time and was stuck down hard. 

When they weren't gaming in the kitchen, most of the students who usually use the computer room would take turns doing jobs in the remodeling. The linoleum stripping was actually the second or third step of the process. The first had been the tearing out of the carpet. "The carpet was ugly. It looked nasty and smelled nasty," said Gabriel. Was it hard to pull up? "The carpet, No. The linoleum, yes." That took two or three days of hard work with the jackhammer-lawnmower machine. Periodically Mat R., the staff who also serves on the computer committee, would re-sharpen the blades with a spinning stone that sent bright sparks flying, and made its own noise. At times, there were five or six students in at once, washing, ripping out carpet nails, All in all, a loud set of jobs. 

Once the floor was uncovered and washed, and a crack the students discovered was re-sealed, it was time to paint. Students used long-handled rollers and laid down two coats on the floor, then let it dry before hauling all the desks, chairs and computers back in and re-connecting them. (Later, still another coat was added, accompanied by another trip of all the furniture in and out.) After routine de-bugging and de-fragging, the computer room was at last declared open for business again. It had taken seven days of work. Gabriel brought chocolate chip cookies to thank everyone who had pitched in to do the labor. Now that the room is re-opened, it is almost as if it has always been this way. The floor is shiny, the chairs roll over it smoothly; no one misses the old ugly carpet. And the kitchen is quiet again. Sort of.

Improvements Around Campus

Mat and Matt were hard at work over the summer, making improvements to the buildings and grounds. 

 The Mat(t)s

They finished the painting of the buildings and fixed up the basement of the house which made room for a game room and freed up the upstairs for the playroom again. They also worked on the drainage swale and another swampy area adjacent to the swale, which they now call the "frog garden", right near the newly installed big tires in the play yard.

The swale was made by many members of

our community, and deserves a post of its own.

Frog garden

Tires

But they didn't stop there. They upgraded the music room, improving the acoustics and adding recording equipment.

Clay Day in the New Art Room

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The new art room is finished and officially open for business. Today there was a clay class. After everyone's finished pieces are taken to be fired, they will be brought back to school to be glazed. There is talk of doing a raku glaze.




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And here is the rest of it.

It's beginning to look like a kitchen

Take a look.....


It is a kitchen! (With a red red floor.)

A look at the new computer room

After hearing about the "new" computer room, maybe you'd like to see it?



At the moment there is some extra furniture in the room, since there are still two major rooms closed for renovation. Things are a little crowded, some furniture has not found a place to belong. Yet the new computer room/old media room is nice and big, and has two doors and plenty of windows, which should help with keeping the room cool in warm weather.

Burst Pipes and Renewal

As Bob mentioned in the blog post below, we are unexpectedly and excitedly doing a major remodel because of water damage from fire sprinkler pipe that burst during the cold snap in December. We discovered after removing the shattered pipe that insulation around it was inadequate, so the new pipe is now well insulated. We are fortunate to have the skill and professionalism of Odyssey Builders for much of the repair and renovation.

PVC fire sprinkler pipe shattered by the big December freeze

We have wanted a kitchen ever since we left our old location in Lake City and this gave us the opportunity to build one earlier than we thought possible. The former computer room was not high on the list for a kitchen location, but it turns out to be a great size for kitchen counters, appliances and tables for eating. Plus, the building's electrical panel, wiring and plumbing are more than adequate for a kitchen's needs. The computer room is now comfortably located in the former Media Room.

Contractor giving demolition instructions to students

Several students were excited to help staff members and our contractor with some of the more minor demolition of non-load-bearing walls and unneeded counters.

Staff member Stephanie and student removing old computer counters in music room

The former music room is being divided into a smaller music room/studio and a separate dedicated art room with a sink.

Students take down a non-load-bearing wall in new kitchen space

Student removing unused computer counters in music room

Thanks to the water damage and insurance reimbursement, we have been able to renovate the rooms to best serve our needs, rather than being constrained by the layout of the school that formerly inhabited the premises. School Meeting approved changing the use of the water-damaged rooms and authorized a committee to decide on flooring, paint colors, cabinets and other decisions to complete the remodel. We anticipate that the remodel will be complete within a month.

Remodel in Progress

You've all heard about how the sprinkler system in the music/computer building exploded in the freezing weather during the break. Thanks to our insurance (and some other funds) we have been repairing and improving the rooms in that building. Odyssey Builders, our former landlord and general contractor, is doing the work. At the last work party, I snapped a few pictures. We will have a new kitchen (the old computer room) and the old music room is being split up into separate music and art rooms.