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.