Guernsey Library renovations are still ongoing but patrons can still access books. (Photo by Sarah Genter)

by Connie Dalrymple

Guernsey Memorial Library

Most of us have found ourselves involved in some sort of a home improvement project at one time or another. My personal favorites are a bathroom project that forced me to bathe my firstborn in the kitchen sink for more than a year and a kitchen renovation in another house that saw me lugging all of my dishes to and from the dirt-floored, unfinished basement to use the utility sink for the washing up. Even if your projects have been less involved, maybe a closet reorganization or painting the bedroom, you’re likely more than well-aware that these things often take three times as long and cost twice as much as you’d expect.

If you’re a Guernsey Memorial Library user, you probably suspect where I’m going with this. Last July, we started what was supposed to be a month-long renovation project to spruce up the Young Adult area on the mezzanine and improve the safety of our elevator and stairways, among other things. The project went gangbusters at the beginning. The floor tile and drop ceiling were removed and replaced, new energy-efficient lights were installed, and the shelving and walls were painted.

Then came the stairway metalwork. The original stairs and railing that were installed more than 50 years ago would never be used in a modern build. The stairs had no backs. The top rail on the railings was too low. The spacing between the bars on the railings was far too large. All of this added up to a disaster waiting to happen. It’s a miracle that no one fell to their doom. Serious progress was made to ameliorate the situation until the metalworkers encountered The Top Railing. (Cue the Law & Order dun-dun sound…)

The last step of fixing the railings involved replacing the plastic cover on the railing. This step is necessary because underneath the plastic cover is a sharp, corrugated surface that is unattractive and unsafe. Unfortunately, once the cover was removed, it could not be replaced again. Subsequent research has revealed that this sort of covering is no longer available and apparently cannot be replicated. Isn’t that a fine kettle of fish?

The past several months have involved much redesigning of railings, approving of the new designs, sourcing the raw materials, finding a fabricator to turn the raw materials into the new railings that match the design, scheduling the metalworkers to finish the work, etc. Even before COVID, this would have been an arduous process, but since the pandemic anything involving, well ANYTHING, has become more difficult and more complicated.

The bad news is that the project is still not complete. The good news that we’re closer to being done and hope that in the near future we will be able to take down the plastic construction curtain and bring the books back upstairs, regardless of whether the railings are 100% complete. In celebration of the upcoming soft-reopening of the space, we are holding a contest. Come to the library and submit your best guess on our tear-down-the curtain date, and you will win a fabulous prize. We’re not sure what that fabulous prize will be yet, and don’t bother asking any of the staff for clues because we haven’t got a clue ourselves. We’re just sick of looking at this curtain and trying to make this an opportunity to have some fun. We might even let you get a sneak peek behind the curtain…