Papal furniture delivery

I haven’t been in the shop the last couple of weeks, but I did get to visit my friend Doug’s shop to see the construction of the papal chair as well as the deacon’s chairs and the additional benches for the Papal mass in DC September 23, 2015.

This is a shot of one of the deacon’s chairs, in pieces.

This is a picture of the veneer being formed into the bottom curve of one of the benches.

Adam and I came back a week later to help with loading and delivering the chairs. Adam felt the need to do a little load testing on the Papal chair before it got loaded up.

The folks from the Vatican decided that the Papal seal was too prominent on the front of the chair, so it got relocated to the rear. I think it looks really good with the stain applied.

Doug and his guys wrapped up the cushions and loaded the chairs into two trucks, and we headed to DC.

The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception is the largest Roman Catholic church in the United States.

It also has a lot of steps…

Adam helped with the unloading, until we got to the steps.

We had several steps outside and a few more inside as well. The papal chair was heavy, we used eight people to carry it up. Four could have done it, but we didn’t want to take any chances at this point.

Dave delivered the altar a week or so back, so the faux finisher could start. We placed the Papal chair near the altar because the finisher had been working on the columns for the front of it, and Doug needed to install them.

The faux finisher has put several hundred hours into the twenty or so layers of finish that have been applied so far, and he is still working on it. Looks amazing so far.