Anyone who owns any home knows the home improvement projects never end. When the house is new, the projects center around finishing and decorating. When the home is old, look out! The projects tend to be expensive, time-consuming and occasionally overwhelming.
For one thing, the structure that turns 135 years old this year needs a new roof. That might happen this year, it might not. But one project is solidly on the docket for 2026, and we ever want to do the roof, we’re hoping this one is not expensive, time-consuming or overwhelming.
Of all the spaces we have renovated in the ol’ chome over the years, the interior of the belfry has remained pretty much static. The bell tower on top was repaired in 2019 and remains operational. But the little second-story room beneath the bell is pretty retro.
Let’s go back in time to see how it looked when we bought the church in 2017.
Here is the doorway to the belfry the day we toured the church, before we even bought it. All that stuff in the foreground was the leftovers from Sunday School classes.
Here is some of the junk on the shelves inside the belfry.
And most alarming, here is the exterior wall of the belfry. The window had been covered up and we found a bullet hole in it!
Eventally, we cleaned the room out, replaced the window, switched out the door for a new windowed door to let the light into the guest bedroom and painted a coat of primer on the shiplap.
Here is how the shelves looked after we cleaned up and painted. That bell pull was brand new in this picture.
I filled those shelves with hundreds of books, only to revisit the room when I needed a new read. And that’s how the belfry stayed until last fall when I spent several days cleaning it out in order to create a clean slate for home improvement. I have at least a dozen boxes of books with which I could not part that are stored under the eaves.
Here’s how the little belfry room looks now.
At some point this summer, my husband will tackle this room, finishing the wall and floor treatments (not sure yet how) and rebuilding the shelves. I assume I’ll be called into battle to paint.
And then, and then! I’ll get to reshelve all my books. It will be the best little library you’ve ever seen!
I’m writing about it today as a way to making promises to myself (and my faithful readers) that I will fulfill later. So I don’t have the most satisfying after picture for you today, but I hope to share one at some point this year.
In the meantime, I will attempt to chronicle some of the other projects we tackled over the past four years, including the basement and the mancave. Never fear! The projects never end, so I guess neither will this blog. Stay tuned.
Living in a former church has a way of reorienting your sense of time.
Every day, I’m surrounded by evidence of faithful work done long before I arrived—craftsmanship meant to last, decisions made with future generations in mind, and spaces shaped for gathering, reflection and care. Renovating the building wasn’t about restoring it to some imagined perfection. It’s about stewardship: deciding what to preserve, what to adapt and how to honor what came before while making room for what comes next.
As I prepared to launch my new book, Prime Time: Ups & Downs of a Minnesota TV Man, out today, I keep noticing how closely these two projects—renovating a church and writing a memoir—mirror each other.
The heights of success appear different in different contexts.
My book tells the true story of my father’s career in early television, a time when the medium was new, fragile and full of promise. His work unfolded in small-town Minnesota, far from the glamour we now associate with television. There were risks, setbacks and reinventions along the way. Like many lives, his wasn’t a straight upward climb (except on antenna towers), but a long arc shaped by perseverance, skill and showing up day after day to do the work at hand.
Writing the book required the same kinds of questions I ask daily in this chome of mine: What is essential here? What deserves care? What would be lost if no one paid attention?
Old churches—and old stories—don’t always announce their value loudly. They wait. They hold their meaning quietly, hoping someone will notice before it’s too late.
As my husband and I worked on this space, we came to appreciate how much faith is embedded in physical labor. Someone once chose solid materials instead of cheaper ones. Someone repaired rather than replaced. Someone believed that what they were building mattered beyond their own lifetime. That same faith shows up in ordinary work—running a small business, learning a new technology, committing to a craft, raising a family—long before anyone calls it a “legacy.”
My father never set out to be remembered. He set out to do his job well. The book grew out of that realization: that a life shaped by responsibility, curiosity and resilience is worth recording, not for acclaim, but for understanding.
In many ways, this chome teaches the same lesson. It stands as a record of countless unseen acts of care: sermons preached and forgotten, meals shared, worries whispered in pews, decisions made with hope but no guarantee of outcome. The value isn’t in perfection. It’s in faithfulness over time.
Renovation, like memoir, requires restraint. Not every crack needs to disappear. Not every story needs embellishment. Some marks of age are evidence of endurance, not failure. The goal isn’t to freeze something in the past, but to let it continue speaking—truthfully—into the present.
As Prime Time enters the world this week, I’m grateful for the ways this former church has shaped my thinking about legacy. It has reminded me that stewardship isn’t about owning the story. It’s about tending it for a while and passing it on intact.
Whether we’re caring for buildings, communities or memories, the work is the same: notice what’s worth saving, honor it honestly, and trust that faithfulness—quiet, persistent, and imperfect—will speak for itself.
Today’s the day, folks! Get it now
Prime Time: Ups & Downs of a Minnesota TV Man is available today! Believe it or not, I don’t yet even have any copies myself. Thanks to a glitch in Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, the copies I ordered a month ago haven’t yet made it to my door. But I have it on good authority that when you’re ordering a single copy, it comes mighty quick.
Paperbacks are $11.95. Ebooks (available instantly!) are $5.95.
Some flowers look lovely in a crystal vase, but for me, tulips are best enjoyed in situ. They don’t last long in any case, but they bloom a bit longer with their roots in the ground.
First it was the daffodils, but now the tulips in the pot we call The Church Ladies Garden are in full glory. So sweet and in every pastel shade, they just make me happy.
The planet tilts reliably, bringing us a new season again. Summer is my favorite, and I’m compelled to mark its arrival Thursday with a few sage words.
The quote is adapted from a description of spring in Cahokia Jazz, a novel by Francis Spufford. In the crime noir set in an alternative 1920s, one character is describing to another why they celebrate a spiritual ritual welcoming back spring.
“I know that spring is caused by the regular tilting of the Earth’s axis as it orbits our star. I really do. But I also know that spring is caused by God’s grace, in the form of the sun’s rays, touching this dark earth with new life: a sacred birth, a sacred return, which deserves all the singing, all the dancing, all the ceremony we can give to it. The world turns, but it is not a clockwork mechanism, detective. It is a circular dance, from birth to death to resurrection through arches of flowers, and arches of bread, and arches of skulls. We dance the turning world, and it dances us.”
I only wished I had enough little metal letters for my church sign to recreate the entire quote, it’s so lovely. (The whole book is lovely, but it’s a thinker for you beach readers who prefer to engage your brain rather than flee from reality.)
It’s been a year since I’ve updated ye ol’ church sign, so I thought it appropriate to mark the summer solstice with a little neighborhood grace.
You can see our new boulevard in this angle. Last fall, the village undertook a massive project to install sewers, curbs and gutters on the street. It was a huge mess for months, I tell ya. We lost a tree and gained a lot of frontage. Pray for that sod to take, will you?
Here’s a shot of the tree we lost as it was coming down.
That tree was half dead (only half dead!), and I was sorry to see it go. The remnants of an ancient light fixture someone with the church had installed was tucked into the craw of the branches. All gone.
Here’s that perspective now, with the new curb and new sod.
Like the seasons, change is inevitable. That tree lived a good, long life, I believe. It was once an arch of flowers and became an arch of skulls.
Thus in each flower and simple bell, That in our path untrodden lie, Are sweet remembrancers who tell How fast the winged moments fly. Time will steal on with ceaseless pace, Yet lose we not the fleeting hours, Who still their fairy footsteps trace, As light they dance among the flowers. ~ Charlotte Turner Smith (1749–1806), The Horologe of the Fields
Fall arrived, as it predictably does, on Thursday. It brought with it a cold front and partly cloudy skies after several weeks of late summer weather that was so grand, it punctuated the list of small-talk topics for Midwesterners like an exclamation point. For some folks, autumn is their favorite season of the year. My dad, for instance. The season has a lot going for it: harvest, turning leaves, crisp morning air. But the rapidly diminishing sunlight? I’m not a fan. Here’s to appreciating the light.
We received tragic news via the Facebook scuttlebutt feed the other day.
St. Johnny reported to us that You-Can-Call-Me-Al’s son was advertising an estate sale. Of You-Can-Call-Me-Al’s estate.
You-Can-Call-Me-Al cuts a hole in our kitchen floor, preparing for the tile “rug.”
You-Can-Call-Me-Al was instrumental in reconstructing the old Methodist church into our home. A gifted master carpenter, he transformed many ugly corners and edges into beautifully trimmed details. He did almost all the tiling in Church Sweet Home: the master shower, the kitchen tile rug, counter backsplash and the floor-to-ceiling fireplace. He also spent many days on ladders and an articulating boom in order to construct our Garage Mahal and reconstruct our “rooted” belfry. I prayed for his safety many times when he was crawling around like a monkey in the upper reaches of our church structure.
We might have finished our converted church without him, but it certainly wouldn’t be as pretty as it is.
Dreadfully, the Facebook estate sale indicated You-Can-Call-Me-Al had died the day after Christmas. Tyler called You-Can-Call-Me-Al’s son immediately, he picked up, and he confirmed that yes, sadly, You-Can-Call-Me-Al had died accidentally on December 26.
The morning was early, and Tyler and I were on the road. The coffee in our mouths lost all its taste.
You-Can-Call-Me-Al was dead.
We almost couldn’t believe it. The news was shocking. You-Can-Call-Me-Al was my age. He lived a big an rollicking life, but he died way too young.
Whatever his demise, we loved You-Can-Call-Me-Al. He was almost always kind, optimistic and up for anything. He was an invaluable resource and sounding board on all things construction related and on many life matters, too. I remember one day he showed up at the worksite with an enormous puffball mushroom he’d run across. “You just slice it and fry it in butter,” he said, depositing it on the countertop. “Delicious, I promise.” He was right, of course. Delicious. His extended his generosity in many other ways, too—he led us to a free big-screen TV for the garage, a complete set of wicker furniture and even an entire kitchen’s worth of pre-owned cabinetry for our basement.
He shared many meals with us. “I don’t know how many times we had breakfast together, lunch and dinner,” Tyler said. “Nothing fancy. Sometimes on lawn chairs or on a pile of wood we had stacked up someplace.”
While Tyler wrangled with many a undependable contractor, You-Can-Call-Me-Al was not one of them. He lent us tools and borrowed Tyler’s, and he always returned Tyler’s calls. We tried to help him out when he was in a pinch. During construction, he checked on the house while we were out of town multiple times. Tyler hoped to rope him into the basement remodel last summer, but You-Can-Call-Me-Al was coping with an excruciating back injury. He showed up one day, and I could see the pain all over his face.
You-Can-Call-Me-Al in his signature tie-dye giving high fives on the roof of the garage.
“It was more than an employee-employer type of thing,” Tyler said, noting they fished together on days off more than once. You-Can-Call-Me-Al was as good an angler as he was a carpenter. “Fishing together was always a treat. Because we’d always catch fish, that’s part of it.”
A week or two before Christmas, Tyler invited You-Can-Call-Me-Al to admire his work in the basement. He was proud of the work he did for us and interested in our progress. Ever polite, You-Can-Call-Me-Al said nice things. He did not point out the uneven or unstraight places that surely would have been addressed had You-Can-Call-Me-Al been working at Tyler’s side.
That was the last we saw of him.
“Occasionally, he’d say I did a good job and pat me on the back, which is something other contractors didn’t do,” Tyler said. “Because he knew so much about everything, getting a compliment from You-Can-Call-Me-Al meant a lot. I miss his smile, man.”
One of his last acts as a contractor for us, You-Can-Call-Me-Al relooped the bell pull in the belfry last spring. For some reason, it fell off its track and the bell was inert. In a matter of minutes, You-Can-Call-Me-Al climbed up there and fixed it right up. Ding-dong, ding-dong could again be heard in the village.
“You-Can-Call-Me-Al said more than once how blessed he felt to be there after he lost his wife (who died of cancer a couple years before we met), how he felt blessed by us, and how he felt peace in that church,” Tyler said. “He said that more than once when were were working together. We shared blood, sweat, tears and beers when he was working side-by-side with me daily.”
When you hear our bell ringing, you can thank You-Can-Call-Me-Al. We will miss him forever.
You-Can-Call-Me-Al rings the bell after repair.
In honor of You-Can-Call-Me-Al, here’s the story in Church Sweet Home of how I met him and how he became involved in our project.
Then I experienced another one of those moments of serendipity that had blessed us throughout this project.
I went to the post office to ask about whether we were the getting a mailbox or post office box. I had already been there four times without hearing a clear answer.
As we stepped into line, a man who held open the door for me motioned to let me cut in before him.
“No, go ahead,” I said.
But he was a gentleman of the generation when etiquette demanded ladies first (let’s be honest, he looked to be my age). I accepted his offer.
I explained my problem to the man behind the counter, beginning with this description that had become familiar to my lips: “I bought the old Methodist church, and we’re turning it into our home.” Etc., etc.
During a pause in our conversation, the gentleman behind me asked, “You’re remodeling a church?”
“Yup, we are.” I smiled.
“Do you need any help?” he asked.
“Yes! You know anyone?”
“Yeah, me,” he said. “I’m a master carpenter. And I do other things.”
“Do you know any tilers?”
“Yes, I do tiling.”
“Do you have a card?”
He fished a card out of his pocket. By now I was ignoring the postal employee. I read the card, and an old Paul Simon song floated into my head.
“Al? Can I call you Al? Do you have time now? My husband is at the church. He handles all the contractors. You could go talk to him now.”
“Sure,” You-Can-Call-Me-Al said. “Where’s the church?”
And the polite gentleman went to the church, introduced himself to Tyler—You-Can-Call-Me-Al—and told him, yes, he could tile a shower for us. He did it all the time.
Perhaps my silence here on Church Sweet Home indicates a lack of progress on our basement remodel.
Oh, ye of little faith!
My silence may indicate my slothfulness in writing updates, but updates are indeed occurring at Church Sweet Home. I will try to bring you up to speed with missives throughout this month, the last month of the year. Stay tuned, dear and loyal reader.
In the meantime, I have related news. I’ve started a new project, one with a namesake that honors the church: a blog about prayer named for the belfry of the church. I commissioned an artist to create a logo featuring our church bell. Are you the praying sort? You might find it right up your alley. Check it out by clicking here.
We have a fireworks store in our little village just over the border from Illinois, and it’s evident the populous frequents the place. Pop, pop, pop, whir, bang! Twilight erupts with real-life sound effects around here on a holiday weekend.
I captured this rare evening photo of the church sign last night as some neighbor kids lit street sparklers in the background. My “mighty flame” message is both inspiration and a warning, te he.
Here’s hoping we Americans take advantage of the blessings of liberty for the greater good. Happy Fourth of July!
As much as I appreciate living in a former church, and I do marvel at the wonder of it almost every day, I’m aware that a congregation had to fail to make this space available.
The membership of the old Methodist church that became our home dwindled to the point of not being able to support a pastor, let alone keeping up with maintenance and repairs. As you might recall, no one dared ring the bell toward the end for fear of causing a catastrophy.
The United Church of Christ around the corner.
So when the pastor resigned at the church nearby (the one we belong to, not the one we live in) and we were asked to help find a new one, Tyler and I agreed. We were determined to do what we could to prevent what happened to the Methodists here happen again at the United Church of Christ around the corner. So I helped write the job posting for a new pastor, and Tyler agreed to head the search committee.
After months of interviews (all conducted virtually or very carefully in the midst of a pandemic), Tyler’s team found a keeper. Praise be to God!
The new pastor accepted the call and begins her work on Sunday. The church around the corner will resume worshiping at 9 a.m. every Sunday as it did prior to the world falling to pieces amid COVID-19.
The service Sunday on Independence Day will be resplendent with fellowship, prayer and patriotic hymns. Word on the street is that the organist is pulling out all the stops, an apropos cliché since the phrase refers to an organ’s stop knobs used to regulate the instrument’s sound. God bless America!
As a reader of this blog about transformation and sanctuary and converting an old church into a home, you might find the kind of community and sanctuary you crave after this long, dark nightmare wrought by the novel coronavirus at this little church around the corner. Please consider this an invitation to worship with us. And here’s wishing you a happy Fourth of July in which you contemplate the blessings of freedom and liberty!
Church Sweet Home 