Painters have been at work. Each student room will be painted in Benjamin Moore's "Ancient Oak." The Atrium will be a terracotta pink-red called "Wild Flower." 

Checkerboard floor tile has been installed and grouted in the bathrooms. A beige tile has been used for the shower pans. 

Split unit air conditioners will be mounted in all residential rooms and the atrium by the end of this week. They have been wired and piped through the closets and connected to four condensers on the roof. As the climate becomes more hot and humid, they are an eco-conscious way to keep DDH livable through many summers to come. 

Views of transformation abound around the House. Masonry cleaning has included the hearths in the two guestrooms - the first photo is a particularly grimy "before," including construction dust not usually part of a guestroom experience - but shows off the "after" as particularly beautiful. Doors and doorframes are being refinished as well! 

The painters have provided samples for accent colors in the atrium and other areas. Meanwhile the plasterers have been working on the new ceilings and soffits; they are patching and repairing the original plaster walls.

Emptying the student rooms revealed how soiled the limestone window surrounds were, so masons have been brought in to clean and repoint the stone. They have applied cleaners, scrubbed, then rinsed with cold water, leaving behind a lovely wet, clean, stone smell each afternoon.  

DDH's renovation is in part a response to climate change in recent years. A delivery of more than two dozen "mini splits," the air conditioning units that will be installed in each student and guest room, arrived at the front door last week. A new skylight, more impervious to increased intensities of rainfall and heat now occurring in the Chicago area, is also now in place.

DDH is located on the busy throughway of 57th Street, which had to be closed for a couple of hours on July 24 as a crane lifted four condensers, each eight feet tall, onto the roof to faciliate the air conditioning system. 

Many of the student rooms on the second and third floors of DDH surround a peaceful and dramatic atrium. In the reinvention of residential space, the old ceiling tiles have been removed and will be replaced with new drywall and better lighting.

The building, completed in 1928, shows amazing construction and care. Underneath the old dropped acoustical tile ceiling and under another layer of the original fiberboard tiles--is a layer of fire-proof clay tiles. (Fortunately there was no asbestos found anywhere.) Some radiators are temporarily parked in the atrium while the work goes on in each student room.

This is a view from the backyard at DDH this morning. A large crane lifted steel beams to the rooftop. The beams will tie into the building's structural columns and support air-conditioning equipment on the rooftop. This equipment is part of a heat-pump system that will bring air into the second and third floors of DDH.

This summer, Room 38 will disappear to become part of the grand renewal of the two residential floors. Room 38 was tucked under a dormer on the third floor, across the alley from the practice room in the neighboring church where choirs and dancers rehearsed. For nearly 100 years, the book-lined student room was where languages and texts were studied and papers and dissertations were written. Students will still pursue that learning in twenty-two other student rooms and studies. But now, enlarged, all-gender restrooms and energy-efficient air-conditioning are on their way, as are many other transformations.

Almost apocalyptic. The demolition is underway.

Students have moved out for the summer. The construction crew has moved in. We are grateful for Frank Heitzman, architect; Mark Nussbaum, engineer; and the team at Macon Construction.

Construction is underway to regenerate spaces of student living and learning at DDH--

The aim is to ensure that "the House" will continue to welcome new students and to undergird their learning and leadership. These plans are rooted in a commitment to education for ministry and scholarship that is critically engaged with the suffering and hope of the world. They underscore the conviction that face-to-face community is essential for transformative learning.