Our story so far: We found an old Methodist church we wanted to turn into our home in September 2017, we took possession in November, we finished demolition in January and we spent the next seven months renovating the first and second stories from top to bottom.

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Chapter 40

Tyler placed a call into the building inspector and asked him to drop by when he had a few minutes to inspect the church.

“We’re hoping to move in this week,” Tyler said.

Move. In.

We had a flushing toilet and a shower. The bedroom needed only a bed. The kitchen had a sink, a fridge and a hole for the stove. We were within a hair’s breadth of having the operational bathroom, kitchen and bedroom the building inspector told us nearly a year before that we would need before he would allow us to occupy the church.

Very early the next morning before the sun had completely risen above the horizon of the village, Tyler and I were standing in our master bedroom gazing at the ceiling where he was showing me the wonders of the high-tech rope lighting that had been tucked into the crown molding of the tray. Tyler was fiddling with the app on his phone, changing the colors like he was operating a disco ball. I spied movement out of the corner of my eye. The building inspector was standing in the doorway to the hall of history.

“Come on in,” I said. “Check out our ceiling lighting.”

He gamely observed our superfluous bedroom lighting. The last thing the building inspector cared about was our disco vibe.

I skeedaddled, leaving the foreman to show off our work and acquire a permit.

Which he did. A few minutes later, Tyler handed me a piece of paper that specified we were the proud recipients of a temporary habitational permit. All that was outstanding was listed as “life safety,” that being smoke detectors (which were installed later that afternoon) and hand rails on the stairways.

We could move in! We could move in! I carefully folded and filed our permit, smiling ear to ear.

This was the relay handoff for which we had been sprinting.

That was a Tuesday. We were allowed to sleep in the church/home, but we didn’t yet have our big, beautiful king-sized Sleep Number bed in it. With all the distractions of construction, finishing and cleaning, it would take until Saturday to move all the pieces of the bed into the chome and assemble them.

We tackled the job in relative privacy on Saturday and accomplished the task. Planning ahead, we rolled out a new rug and dressed the bed in new bedding.

With our gleaming chandeliers, the rustic feature wall and our funky night stands made out of safes, our master bedroom looked like one straight out of Pinterest.

 

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Tomorrow: First shower. Read about it here.