Author: Monica Lee

Monica Lee is the author of four memoirs/autobiographical fiction books: her latest is Church Sweet Home: A Renovation to Warm the Soul. Also available: Truth, Dare, Double Dare, Promise or Repeat: On Finding the Meaning of "Like" in 1982, How to Look Hot & Feel Amazing in Your 40s: The 21-Day Age-Defying Diet, Exercise & Everything Makeover Plan and The Percussionist's Wife.

Outdoor party zone

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Another project we wrapped up early enough last summer to enjoy it was the deck.

Some might call it a patio. Some might call it porch. We call it the deck.

From the beginning of Tyler’s Garage Mahal dreams, he envisioned a deck off the three-season “room” (also known as the fourth stall of the garage).

When the garage was built in late 2018, it got a roof but there was no time for siding. And certainly no deck. Even the windows on the east side were simply boarded up for the Wisconsin winter.

So the first element of finishing was to install enormous four-panel vinyl windows with screens. But the siding on that side of the garage awaited final placement after laying the deck.

deck in progress earlier
First windows, then stringers for the decking.

Excavation to ground level was first. Then Tyler and You-Can-Call-Me-Al laid the stringers (perfectly level, of course). A little corner was made to accommodate the biggest pine tree in the yard. Then they used 3,500 screws (no kidding) to secure the deck boards (the deck is roughly 34 feet long, 16 feet wide–we Go Big or Go Home around here, as regular readers are well aware).

deck in progress
First piece of furniture: the “contractors’ table.”

Now Tyler was ready to add some fun to the function. He drew inspiration from this picture of a slated ornamental wall:

deck inspiration
This “Pinteresting” image described the structure as a wind-breaker and privacy wall.

Tyler wanted a bit of a shield from gawkers passing by on the south side (a man likes to enjoy a beer in peace), and a wall of some sort seemed workable. I like how nice it looks. So You-Can-Call-Me-Al was set to work building a wall from this picture, not the first time our “blueprints” came from Pinterest.

deck finished
Privacy wall in place.

Then Tyler stained everything in a couple of coats of Mountain Cedar.

deck from street
Here’s the “gawker’s” view from the street (picture taken last summer, when the grass was lush).

The deck still requires lighting (which awaits garage wiring). But we enjoyed it a few times and it was ready for the open house last fall. At some point soon, warm weather will return and we’ll enjoy again. And soon after that, I hope, we will be able to socialize there (even though we could probably entertain at least two or three couples and still have six feet between each of us!).

 

 

The playroom

Monica Lee6 Comments

We made good use of the bonus space under the eaves on the second story of Church Sweet Home.

On one side, I store office supplies and Christmas decorations.

lucy's door with knob
The entry door to the playhouse.

On the other side of the roof, Tyler created a little playhouse for our grandchildren. It’s about four feet wide, seven feet long and five feet tall and accessible from the guest bedroom.

Little Doors Closed
This is the window to the playhouse with the doors closed.

A window on the balcony side was the finishing touch on the playhouse. For the window frame, Tyler found a doored mirror at Ginger Blossom, one of our favorite local furniture stores. He removed the mirror, and in its place, the frame looks like a little wooden treasure box.

Little Doors Open
This is the window with the doors open.

Look how thick that wall is! That’s one of the original exterior walls of the old Methodist Church. It’s dark inside there because the little room still requires proper lighting and some nice comfy carpeting. But what’s inside there right now has a story, too.

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The current residents: Raggedy Andy and Raggedy Ann, though even at 40 years old, they hardly look ragged.

This couple was given to me by a dear woman, a new friend I knew not long enough. A talented sewing congregant at our church made Raggedy Anns & Andys for the annual bazaar, back when our church still had a women’s group and bazaars. (They were made from what must have been a widely circulated pattern because my own mother made me a vary similar pair– twice! Oh, how many times Raggedy Ann listened to my troubles!) My friend bought this particular pair for her son, when he son was still a little boy who might appreciate such things.

A couple weeks before our open house last fall, this friend called me up and invited me over because she “had something to give me.” I was honored to be granted an audience, let alone a gift, because my friend had long been battling a terminal illness and she was nearing the end. (When I first met her when I moved to town, I didn’t even realize she was ill, she carried herself with such optimism and grace.)

I paid her a visit, and she gave me these handmade treasures because she thought “they came from your church, so they belong there now.” I accepted them with gratitude and made a home for Raggedy Ann and Andy in the playhouse, to display during our open house. (By the way, Andy there is seated on another gift from another generous benefactor. That little chair, repainted to match my design scheme, was once a Sunday School chair at our church.)

Very sad for me (and anyone else who knew her), my friend died the day of our open house.

These dolls make me think of my friend Deanna, and whenever I think of her, I think of her fondly. She was wise and generous and very kind to think of me and support our home improvement project so enthusiastically.

“Life is a song. Sing it.
“Life is a game. Play it.
“Life is a challenge. Meet it.
“Life is a dream. Realize it.
“Life is a sacrifice. Offer it.
“Life is love. Enjoy it.”

                      ~ Sai Baba

 

Stained glass presents unique challenge in church conversions

Monica Lee1 Comment
Original windows
You can see the etched glass transom windows in the sanctuary on the right. The transom above the former front door, which may or may not have been stained glass, has been lost to history.

That the little Methodist church didn’t have stained glass windows was a plus for us in renovating it into our house.

Incorporating such obviously religious architecture into a private home is tricky.

Here’s a church conversion that did it well.

stained glass example
You can see how the ceiling was adjusted in the bathroom design to accommodate the window, but it’s lovely.

I found this on Houzz under the banner “the best church conversions.” Located in Chicago’s Little Italy neighborhood, this former Methodist church, built in 1901, is described as a “dream project for a young couple who wanted an open, light-soaked home in which to raise their three children.”

Stained glass has been around for a thousand years, and it is typically featured in the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. It has the benefit of allowing light without tempting parishioners with outside distractions during services. The most elaborate stained glass windows in churches tell stories, such as the stations of the cross or of saints.

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This image captures how the church, and its windows, looked when we purchased it.

The windows in our church were not stained glass, but they were clouded glass to keep worshippers’ attention within. We swapped that out for clear glass. The original transom windows were etched glass. A kind of decorative glass, etched glass is the result of a series of small cuts made to the glass, by acidic, caustic or abrasive substances, after the glass has been manufactured. The cuts normally appear white against the glass and can be made into patterns or images.

etched glass window
The etchings in our windows feature flowers and geometric designs.

One of our transom windows has a small crack, but we resolved that by installing storm windows.

At some point in the reconstruction process, Tyler hit upon a way to incorporate stained glass into our design—as interior windows on the balcony. All the stained glass windows we found in antique stores were too gold or red for our color scheme until we found these leaded glass windows. They were the perfect “stained” glass without stain.

leaded glass over tub

One of these windows overlooks the tub. It’s not as dramatic as the Chicago church conversion, but it suits our aesthetic.

 

The pinnacle of success

Monica Lee7 Comments

I realized I dropped the ball, or maybe “dropped the spire” is a better metaphor for what happened here.

I wrote last summer how we found the perfect spire for our belfry when we went junking at “Wisconsin’s Finest” antique flea market in Elkhorn. The steel spire with Victorian era fleur-de-lis detailing had been salvaged from the turret of a decrepit late 1800s mansion in Vilas County, Wisconsin.

But I failed to show you how it turned out.

Spire before painting
Spire after painting
Spire, before and after painting

The junk spire required a bit of straightening. We had it sand-blasted before applying a few coats of rust-proof paint.

spire on articulating arm better

Tyler rented an articulating boom to provide safer access to the belfry forty feet off the ground. You-Can-Call-Me-Al enjoyed using the boom (it was easier on the legs than a ladder by far). He and Tyler accomplished some other repairs up there (Tyler remained on the ground), and early one clear Sunday morning, the spire was hauled up there.
I went to church that morning (a different, actual church with a worship service), and I specifically recall asking for protection for You-Can-Call-Me-Al. The good news is, he was fine and so is the spire.

Al waving on spire
You-Can-Call-Me-Al gives the thumbs up after he bolted the spired to the turret. That guy is fearless. My hands get sweaty just looking at this picture.

The belfry, described as “rooted” when we bought the church, required three phases of improvements, but it looks (and sounds) beautiful now.

belfry fall 2107
This is an early picture of the belfry, taken after Reroofer repaired the flat roof beneath the bell.
finished spire
And here’s the finished belfry. 

Now you know the rest of the story. The belfry is an exceedingly public result of the church’s renovation. Fixing it didn’t add a lot of value to the private residence, but I’m proud we pursued excellence and restored that historic bell tower to glory.

# # #

“Every person is endowed with God-given abilities, and we must cultivate every ounce of talent we have in order to maintain our pinnacle position in the world.”

~ Ben Carson,
retired neurosurgeon currently serving as the
U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

Church Sweet Home becomes a book

Monica Lee6 Comments

I started this blog because I’m writer. Having already written three books and thousands of blog posts, I sensed I had a great story, no matter how it turned out, and it needed to be documented.

Without knowing how it would end, I chose the unconventional approach of a real-time-memoir with the intention of turning my blog posts into a book. I’ve spent months polishing my prose and having it professionally edited, and finally, the launch day for the book Church Sweet Home: A Renovation to Warm the Soul is coming soon. Mark your calendar: May 5.

CSH Book Front Cover OnlyIf you’re here, reading this blog post, you’ve probably read most of the story and you sort of understand it all ends well. I have hundreds of loyal readers who cheered us on through months of dirty demolition and construction, and I am so grateful for the moral support you offered with nice comments and Facebook likes on so many nights we were exhausted and feeling sorry for ourselves. You helped pull us through.

You might be asking, why would I read this book if I followed the blog? Well, here are five reasons you might enjoy the book as much as you liked the blog:

  1. The book has an all-new prologue about abandoned churches.
  2. The story has a proper heart-warming ending.
  3. All the those annoying “our story so far” and “tomorrow” teasers are gone.
  4. You’ll find out how the real budget compares to the Tequila Budget.
  5. If you’re technically challenged or just too impatient to click through all the blog posts, you can page through the story easily and at your own pace.

I suppose you might know some people who would enjoy the story but aren’t blog readers. Voilà, a book is a nice gift for your friend.

So stay tuned for all the information you need to get yourself a paperback or ebook of Church Sweet Home in May.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to share updates about the renovation. I have a few in the archive, and we still have projects ahead of us.

Again, thanks for reading.

 

Shake that booty

Monica Lee1 Comment

As I pondered news to share here about progress we’ve made on the church, I realized I never shared before-and-after photos of the west side of the church.

This area of the old Methodist church received a lot of attention last summer when we sided the garage and finished repairs to the belfry.

Here’s how it looked “before” when that functional-but-less-than-pretty fire escape was still attached:

fire escape after new windows
This picture was taken after we replaced the windows. 

Note the distinctive architectural feature between the first- and second-story windows. After finding the original wooden shakes on the fluted portion of the belfry, Tyler suspected wooden shakes were also hidden beneath that aluminum siding on the west side. So he had You-Can-Call-Me-Al remove the siding, and behold, the original shakes.

west side revealed
Removing the aluminum siding revealed wooden shakes in the peak and between the windows.

The wood shakes were in pretty good condition, and we wondered why on earth they were ever concealed. They desperately needed paint. You-Can-Call-Me-Al replaced about 20 of them. Tyler rented an articulating boom to make the belfry repairs, and You-Can-Call-Me-Al also used it to fix and paint the west side.

west wide articulating boom
Useful tool, that articulating boom.

You-Can-Call-Me-Al painted the wooden shakes a similar color gray that we painted the stone foundation. Those century-old shakes soaked up the latex.

west wide after
A few pieces of white siding are missing on either side of the center fluted area in this picture (let’s be honest, in reality, too). Still, a huge improvement.

The west side turned out so well, we decided to copy the fluted peak and shakes on the new-construction garage, too.

west side garage match
Note the fluted peak of the garage. These shakes are a man-made substance manufacturered in rows, not individual wooden shakes like on the west side.

If you look carefully at the belfry, you’ll see the new spire. I’ll share more about the installation of that spire in a future post.

# # #

CSH Book Front Cover OnlyIf you enjoy renovation stories or more specifically, this renovation story, mark your calendar. The book version of this blog, Church Sweet Home: A Renovation to Warm the Soul, will be available May 5. Stay tuned for details.

There’s a new place for tree’s home for the holidays

Monica Lee3 Comments

When you have an open floor plan and 20-foot ceilings, you have choices. Like where to situate the Christmas tree.

table clothLast year, we erected our brand new 12-foot Christmas in the front corner of the church, mostly because that corner was still unfinished at that point, and a tree filled the empty space. Putting up a 12-foot artificial tree took some effort (which I recount here), but it was lovely.

This year, I dug the five pieces of the tree from out under the eaves on the second floor, drafted a little help (St. Johnny) to get the pieces to the main floor, and the three of us reconstructed the tree in the back of the church at the entryway.

Since last Christmas, that front corner got new built-ins and we put the barrel-top desk there. No room for a tree. But there was a big open space in front of the double doors of the entry, and as long as we kept the Christmas star away from the ceiling fan, there was plenty of space to fill.

Once assembled, I spent a hour fluffing the boughs that were crushed in storage and another hour trying to figure out why one row of lights didn’t work, but all was put right in the end.

Christmas tree editted

Ta, da!

Now we can walk all the way around the tree (which is a first for any Christmas tree I’ve ever decorated inside a house), but that just leaves more room for gifts.

I hope you are finding newness and joy rather than drudgery in your holiday preparations. Here’s to a blessed season of Advent.

 

Open house, check

Monica Lee1 Comment

And we didn’t take a single picture.

This time last week, Tyler and I were recovering our breaths from our open house, which can only be described as a spectacular success.

After two years of planning, demolition and reconstruction, we were racing to the finish to get the church into show shape. My dad hung a thousand pictures on Saturday (he says a thousand, I think it was more like 22), and Tyler sent a lot of time making the lawn look presentable. Mom arranged a half dozen flower vases with fresh flowers gifted to us by a friend, so we had fragrant blooms in almost every room. As for me, I emptied all the trash cans as my last act before accepting guests; the message, of course, is that we have functional things like garbage cans, but we don’t actually use them (it’s a joke). 

Tyler estimates we had 250 people drop by in the two-plus hours we opened our doors to neighbors, contractors, former members of the church and interested onlookers. We had 105 sign our guest book. So I guess we had somewhere between 105 and 250 come to take a look at our church-house renovation. It felt like 250, for sure.

All four of us–me, Tyler, Mom and Dad– talked non-stop for two hours, and we ran the church bell a hundred times, at least. It was so nice to see people ooh and aah and to hear people say nice things about the church and our work. Among our visitors were three former pastors at the church, which was a fun and enlightening surprise.

We were so preoccupied, we didn’t take a single picture, though I know some people took a lot of them. If you’re willing to share, please let me know.

The best part was the booty we collected. We asked visitors to bring a non-perishable foot item for the Loaves & Fishes food pantry, which got its start in our basement when it was a functioning church, and our guests came through for the charity. More than 600 pounds of food was collected! Wow! Thank you!

If you attended our open house, thank you for being here, for contributing and for saying nice things (at least in earshot, ha, ha).

As for my regular readers who didn’t have the opportunity to be here, I will try to share some of the projects we finished this summer during the next couple weeks. The biggest project I finished that I’m excited to tell you about is the book I wrote about renovating the church. Much more to come on that subject, I assure you.

Golden opportunity to see inside

Monica Lee2 Comments

IMG_3680

“Welcome every day … ”

Apologies for being MIA from this blog during the summer. Rest assured, projects were being accomplished and forward motion attained. Just not at the same pace as last summer. Painting the brick of the church sign was among the tasks Tyler checked off his list. Doesn’t it look nice in gray to match the foundation of the building? Tyler also has been hard at work with landscaping and greenery as you can see in the picture.

For my part, I have been busy this week styling tabletops and shelves in preparation for our open house on Sunday. If you’re reading this blog and you live close enough to drop by, you’re invited.

We’re having an open house for former church members, neighbors and contractors. It’s going to be from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon, Sept. 15.

You can see for yourself the quality of our work for just the price of one nonperishable food item per person. You might not know that the local Loaves & Fishes food pantry was founded right here in the basement of our church, and we’re honoring that community endeavor. We’ll collect food donations to give the food pantry, now located elsewhere in town.

Maybe I’ll see you Sunday.