Midshipmen sing in the newly renovated Naval Academy Chapel. The chapel renovation lasted eight months and provided the historic structure with refinished pews, floors and doors among other improvements. USNA photo by David S. Tucker.

The project, headed by Tuckman-Barbee Construct-ion Company, Inc., of Upper Marlboro, Md., began in February and cost $2.3 million, with $925,000 toward refinished pews and floors coming from the Class of 1969.

In addition to the work on the pews and floors, the renovation changed the interior paint inside the chapel to white, repaired and refinished the exterior wooden doors, and replaced the aisle carpeting.

Robert E. Taylor, project manager for the Academy, described the floor of the pews as very worn down.

“These were all the way down to the tongue-and-groove joints,“ Taylor said. “If we had gone another one-sixteenth of an inch, we would have hit the joints.”

To replace the floor without losing the aged feeling of the wood, Taylor said that they salvaged old wood from industrial buildings built around the same time as the chapel in 1904.

Taylor described the renovation as a complete redo, noting that the further they got to fixing one part, another part would need attention.

“The plaster work was more than we expected,“ Taylor said. “Sometimes, you would start to rout out a crack and the whole area would fall off.“

During the renovation, the chapel still held services. The contractors built a temporary wall all the way to the ceiling, separating the work in progress from a temporary altar for Sundays.

‘‘We had some tourists and some parents of some of our new Midshipmen that thought the blocked off portion was the whole chapel, they didn’t even know there was a back part,” said Capt. Peter McGeory, senior chaplain at the Academy. ‘‘I told them to come back in November and see the whole thing.”

Noting Academy Superintendent Vice Adm. Jefferey L. Fowler’s enthusiasm for the project, McGeory said that he was willing to take every available angle to have the project completed on time. The goal was to complete the renovation as quickly as possible to ensure that the historic chapel was once again available for its usual schedule.

‘‘Change is hard, and construction incon-veniences people,” said McGeory.

McGeory commended the craftsmanship of the chapel, and the efforts of the contractors working on the renovation.

“Those Tiffany glass windows are priceless,“ he said. “The organ has 15,000 pipes and the way they meticulously took care of everything was spectacular.“

Reopened to the public, the chapel is now ready to accommodate its full capacity of 2,500 people and its full complement of services and special events.