Cranberry House is finally poised to open in 2008!  Heating is installed (see photos below) and all major construction work is completed.  We arranged all the museum exhibits in the Preble-Marr Museum.  Everything fits in well, and looks attractive.

The upstairs Cultural Center is finished too.  It'll be an ideal place to host all kinds of interesting activities, such as musical events, art shows, classes, and regularly-scheduled movies.

However, we do have two remaining pressing needs, and to address them before the planned grand opening next year, we've started a Handicap Lift Fund and a Hitty Café Kitchen Fund.

A gang of volunteers today helped move every document, artifact, and furnishing from the historical museum in the Longfellow schoolhouse to the Preble-Marr Museum on the ground floor of Cranberry House.  The ground floor museum space was prepared, and the eight display panels were moved in the preceding week.

We had accumulated many artifacts in the eight years we were in the schoolhouse museum, which all had to be displayed, as we had no out-of-sight storage space.  But Cranberry House has a basement storage area, so now we can be more selective about what artifacts we actually put on display in the museum.  This gives the new museum a cleaner and less cluttered look.

The Preble-Marr Museum will open to the public in mid June, 2008.  To accomodate both our July and August summer visitors, we will hold two special Grand Opening celebrations: a live musical event on Sunday, July 27, and a reception for an "Art of the Cranberries" exhibit and auction on Saturday, August 2, 2008.

Maine Fire Protection Systems (Bangor) arrived today and started installing the "Hydro Pro" fire sprinkler system - the only one on the Cranberry Isles.  The system has four 500-gallon water tanks in the basement, and a powerful pump to supply that water to any sprinkler head in the building that opens, due to a fire.  The system has enough water not only to allow time for people to safely exit the building, but also to continue spraying in an effort to suppress the fire before it spreads.  There will be an external connection, to which a fire pumper truck could be attached, to prolong the spraying even more.  This type system is better than the minimum required by code, and will help reduce our insurance bills.

Pipefitters from Maine Fire Protection Systems (Bangor) start installing the fire sprinkler system.

Four 500-gallon tanks in the basement supply the water

The septic system is fully installed.  It has been covered, and extra fill was brought in to smooth out the transition from the septic tank to the main entry steps.

The fire escape is done.  The septic system has been started.  It consists of a 1000-gallon treatment tank near the building, with 16 concrete chambers for a drain field.  The chambers are reinforced and can be driven on; they'll be covered, and that area will become part of the parking lot.

Work begins on the fire escape, a required item to obtain the Fire Marshall's approval to open the building.  Also, work begins in the basement, making a wall to separate the public area (Multimedia Center and Computer Lab) from the utilities room (sprinkler system tanks and pump, and circuit breakers) and the archival room (storage.)  And finally, we received five truckloads of fill, mostly loam (topsoil) which will soon be spread to form the lawn and the earthen entrance ramp to the deck.