Our story so far: The first phase of our church conversion is demolition, and we found a number of interesting items as we cleaned up and tore down.

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Demolition is 5 percent revelation and 95 percent dirty work. In those first few heady days of demolition, we were still in the revelation phase, and it was fun.

As we peeled away layers of carpeting, carpet padding, paneling and ceiling tiles, we discovered the beautiful original finishes of the old Methodist church. That moment in a DIY television show when a flipper discovers hardwood floors and swoons? That’s real. We did a little dance when Tyler pulled back the carpeting in the main sanctuary and found wide pine hardwood; Tyler suspected it might be Douglas fir. If we weren’t so old, we would have done a breakdance when we revealed the oak floors in overflow area, the room we intended to turn into our master suite.

Under the 1970s wood paneling, beadboard—the kind that was installed a single board at a time instead of with today’s monolithic sheets—lined the master suite area up to the chair rail (or, at least, where the chair rail used to be). The ceiling in the master bedroom was also narrow-slated wood of some sort. We imagined a fantastic tray ceiling with the wood revealed in the center.

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Tomorrow: We find an interesting architectural feature we think we can incorporate into our floor plan. Click here to read it.