Our story so far: After moving into the mostly finished old church we had renovated into a home, we turned our attention back to the belfry which had decades-old structural issues—and a beautiful facade—under the newer aluminum siding.
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You-Can-Call-Me-Al snapped this picture of an old squirrel’s nest and an old squirrel (or possibly some other creature) in the belfry before he vacuumed it up.
On Day 2 of belfry reconstruction, You-Can-Call-Me-Al spent the entire day vacuuming up decades of animal carcasses, nesting material and animal feces in the space between the interior ceiling on the second floor (where the trap door was, above the window) and the roof beneath the bell that Reroofer repaired the autumn before. You-Can-Call-Me-Al filled bag after bag of gross detritus. In every single corner, animals and insects had lived and died. This is where Stan the Squirrel—the mummified resident Tyler found when he first inspected the belfry—had lived and died. Many boards had been chewed away.
This cleaning was necessary so the men could see what they had to work with and what needed repair. They would also be using the floor in this anteroom as a staging area for tools, nails and lumber.
I climbed the ladder into the belfry after the place had been vacuumed and tools have been moved in. You can see how some of the boards supporting the structure had been chewed away.
Our story so far: We could not focus on the fine details of finishing the interior of the old Methodist church we had turned into a home because winter was coming. The belfry required attention and the garage needed to be built, and time was limited.
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This photo of the belfry was taken during Reroofer’s initial work on the roof beneath the bell in November 2017.
The day the movers helped me move the stove and boxes into our home, Reroofer arrived, too. Reroofer, the bearded man who secured the roof beneath the bell on the first days we owned the church, was no longer bearded but still willing to work on our belfry. He climbed up inside the tower and began tearing off siding from the top down to reveal the real problems—and the real beauty—of our belfry.
Beneath the aluminum siding was the beautiful original diagonal wood siding and decoratively detailed cedar-like shakes—and the window we could always see from the inside but which had been covered by aluminum on the exterior. Reroofer also revealed the truth of the structural problems so we could see clearly what we were had and how to address it. The belfry never look so naked and the pilings holding up the bell looked as spindly as a wet dog after a bath; from afar, the 126-year-old four-by-fours looked like toothpicks, and they didn’t look so great up close either.
Here’s how the belfry appeared after Reroofer removed all the aluminum siding.
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Today’s headline is a quote from Esther Pauline “Eppie” Lederer, better known by the pen name Ann Landers, an American newspaper advice columnist.
Tomorrow: The gross interior of the belfry. See it here.
Our story so far: After months of dirty demolition and exhausting reconstruction, my husband and I moved into the 126-year-old Methodist church we had turned into our home. But our to-do list was still long.
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Chapter 41
With “move in” checked off the list, Tyler eyed the calendar and began work on the belfry and shortly thereafter, the Garage Mahal.
See, our move in was very unlike any you would ever see on any episode of HGTV. The big reveal on those home improvement programs features flowers on the countertop and pictures on the wall. The project is done done.
A drawer is pretty difficult to use without a way to open it.
Our move-in included none of those chocolates-on-the-pillow touches. We had no switch plates. We had no floor registers. We had no cabinet knobs. If we had door knobs, it was only because they were still attached to an original door (of which there were few). Many cabinets and closets had no shelves, and if you’ve ever really bothered to consider your cabinets and closets, they’re pretty useless without shelves. Every vase, every piece of wall art, every basket and organizer I owned was packed in a box or a bin, which were tucked into every available corner waiting to be unpacked.
Tyler chose distinctive black floor registers for most of the rooms in the church now home. Here’s one that actually got installed.
But Tyler couldn’t concentrate on these details, at least not yet. October was looming large. The days were getting noticeably shorter and cooler. One day, You-Can-Call-Me-Al, who’d worn denim shorts to work on the church all summer, showed up in jeans, and he looked like a different person. The belfry required attention and the garage needed to be built, and Tyler had limited time to get these projects accomplished.
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Tomorrow: Day One of belfry reconstruction. Read about it here.
Our story so far: Bit by bit, we moved the essentials into the old church we renovated into our home.
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Tyler made a huge vat of spaghetti for dinner, our first opportunity to entertain—truly entertain, during which drinks were offered and we sat in chairs around a table—in the church, now our home. As usual, he made enough for an army even though it was just my stepdaughter and her husband (my granddaughter was eating solid food, but certainly not spaghetti). So we recycled the leftover sauce over spinach lasagna roll-ups when his mother and her significant other joined us for dinner a couple of days later. It made me so happy to sit around the table, mostly relaxed, enjoying the company of family.
My autumn centerpiece. The candles smell like toasted marshmallows.
The next night, Tyler cousin and her husband joined us for dinner. This couple graciously hosted us in their yard during the lingering weeks it took us to close on the church the autumn before. His cousin brought me a gift: Miniature decorative pumpkins she’d picked out of her patch that afternoon; I tucked them around my impromptu tray of candles to create a seasonal centerpiece. Instead of sitting around the table, we dined casually at the tongue of the island, where the hanging seeded-glass pendants splashed light over us as we enjoyed steak and each other’s company.
Family, food and fellowship—exactly what I imagined we would be doing in our new home.
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Today’s headline comes from Hebrews 13:2.
Tomorrow: Chapter 41 opens. And we’re back where we began. Read about it here.
Our story so far: Room by room, the old Methodist church we’d renovated into our home was taking shape.
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Once the movers completed their work, boxes literally everywhere surrounded me. I chose to start unpacking in the dining corner of our great room because we expected visitors: My stepdaughter, our son-in-law and our granddaughter were coming for dinner, and I wanted to entertain on new dining room table.
The table and a china hutch had been delivered a week before. Both were enormous, and I was glad I wasn’t one of the guys hauling it inside. We found them at a nearby importer situated on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Most of their goods were imported from Asia, so the farm had a wide selection of stone Buddas and Hindi gods, but it also offered unique jewelry, colorful dishware, one-of-a-kind furniture, hand-woven rugs and cotton bedding.
We’ll call this the dining corner, instead of the dining room.Pay no attention to the furniture pads acting as temporary rugs in the dining corner.
When we moved out of our old house, we’d vowed never to buy new unupholstered furniture again after selling off so many pieces for chump change, but the legs on the teak table at the importer were just the unique touch we wanted in a rustic table. We’d never find something so cool on Craig’s List.
This is the grand sight that greets me every morning as I walk out of my bedroom, and it impresses me still.My china has the flowers; grandma’s has the simple silver rim.
Ditto for the china cabinet which was the perfect size for the corner of the great room. I’d never owned a piece of furniture like it, and I longed to display the china I inherited from my grandmother when she moved out of her home. As I unpacked the box of her china, a box of my own china and a box of pink Depression glassware my mother gifted me, I realized: This was a big china hutch. I had more than enough display space.
We found six dining room chairs on sale at a nearby mass market retailer. Tyler picked them out, and I was amazed at how well these chairs matched our teak table, which I dressed in table runners my mother sewed just for this purpose and a tray of candles I found among my packed dishes.
Our story so far: We moved into the old Methodist church we had converted into a residence.
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The movers and I also transported dozens of boxes of books, office supplies (we had an abundance of boxes labeled vaguely as “office”), home décor and odd boxes of speakers, speaker wire and “cords.” When we’d moved out of our previous house nearly two years before, I distinctly remembered dumping a literal ton of paperwork and boxes of weird wires. But still, we had a lot. At some point later in the week, Tyler would sort through all these extension cords, phone chargers and computer connecting wires; among the ephemera, he’d find one of my old cell phones which he plugged in to recharge.
Meanwhile, the Big Box guys arrived. Tyler had prepared and installed the television bracket above the fireplace with a typical overabundance of caution. Whatever was hung on that bracket would never come down. Ladders were erected, a whole bunch of plastic and cardboard packaging was removed from the state-of-the-art TV, and with great care, two guys lifted it into place and secured. Within a few minutes, rich pink flamingos in high definition was strutting across Tyler’s enormous television. The hairs of every feather were visible. Just like in the commercial, he was glued to the screen while chaos ensured around him. Joanna Gaines would never approve of such a monstrosity, but Tyler was well pleased.
With three inches of play on either side of the television, one of the movers noted, “It could have been bigger!”
Among the items we were moving in was our sectional sofa. We had gotten rid of most of our furniture when we moved out of our house two years before, so when we moved into the rental house over the winter, we needed somewhere to recline in the evenings; we invested in an enormous sectional that we barely squeezed into the tiny rental house. Now, in our great room, it looked normal sized. We intended to invest in a couple of other chairs and other pieces, but for now, all Tyler required was this sofa, situated to take best advantage of the fireplace and TV.
Here’s the balcony view of our sectional. Imagine a different rug, a sofa table, an end table (and more seating near the fireplace). But it’s an abundant start.
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Tomorrow: Grandma’s china gets displayed in the dining room. Read about it here.
Our story so far: My husband and I slept in our new home for the first time, ten months after we’d purchased an old Methodist church to turn into our residence.
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Monday dawned. If ever a man could be labeled as a rolling stone, it was Tyler. He gathered no moss on this day, two days after we first slept in the church. The movers were scheduled to arrive at 8 a.m. The guys from the electronics Big Box store had also confirmed they would arrive with Tyler’s new television between 8 and 10 o’clock. And, just to make things interesting, Reroofer had agreed to come and execute a mini demolition of the belfry that morning. Tyler was looking at the calendar, and he figured if he was going to repair those pilings that supported the bell before winter, he’d better start now.
I was assigned to supervise the movers who were to empty one of our rental units and our cargo trailer. First object of interest: The used six-burner stove we’d scored on Craig’s List and stored since early spring. It was time to haul it into the church.
She was heavy, that stove (everything seemed heavy at this point in the project), and the movers earned their pay hiking it into our pickup, back out of the pickup, up the entryway steps and into the kitchen. A few gymnastics were required to hook up the gas behind the stove and exit this space again, but Tyler and one of the movers persevered. Tyler reattached the oven door and fired up the gas. Remember, we’d purchased it used and never hooked it up to natural gas because we had no place to do so. Had we acquired a good deal? Or a bum one?
Here’s the stove, in place. You can see our tile rug, too, set into the Douglas fir wood floor.
Burner One ignited. Burner Two ignited. Burner Three ignited. Four, Five, Six and the oven, too. We were cooking with gas, baby!
Having an operational stove was a real turning point. I could now move all our food into the church. I would unpack boxes of cookware—soup pans, woks, cookie sheets! Instead of cooking a tiny RV kitchen or a poorly equipped rental house, I could whip up creations as I used to. I dreamed of stews and chilis, muffins and cookies. It was autumn, and I would have been drawn into the kitchen anyway. Now I could use this enormous new stove in my properly equipped kitchen, and I was inspired to chop and dice like never before.
In this further off view, one can see the island, now clad in granite, and the bar stools around the “tongue” of the island with the beverage bar in the background.
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Today’s quote is a joke of W.C. Fields, an early twentieth century comedian.
Our story so far: We made coffee at our beverage bar for the first time on the morning we woke up in the church we renovated into our dream home.
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I spent the rest of the day hanging clothes. Clothes that had been in the rental house. Clothes that had been in the RV. Clothes that had been in storage for two years. So many clothes. It was a good thing we’d created so much hanging space. While I hung clothes, I also washed them. How novel! My new washer and dryer hummed quietly in the background as I unpacked long forgotten dresses, suits and sweaters.
Here’s an After shot of my closet after I finished hanging clothes in it. It shows the new lights, which Tyler described as “prison lights.” But he’s not the one who does laundry, and I love how they coordinate with the plumbing pipe closet rods.
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Today’s headline is a quote from British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood.
Tomorrow: The movers haul in the stove, among other things. Read about it here.
Our story so far: After months of work, my husband and I moved into the 126-year-old Methodist church we had converted into our residence.
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We woke up the next morning, feeling refreshed after sleeping on our favorite bed. A Sunday. I found this somehow significant, even though we weren’t conducting any services. First day of the week. First day living in the church.
The beverage bar with all the pieces in place.
First task: Making coffee. At the beverage bar. The extra-deep counter had room for all our coffee-making paraphernalia, and a little sink to rinse off the Aeropress when we were done. But on this day, Tyler brewed us a whole pot. We sat at the island—because we’d hauled in the bar stools when we brought in our bed—and we enjoyed our comfortable seating. I saw everything with new eyes because I was no longer planning it or walking by it mid-construction, I flipped the light switches, I stood over the countertop, I ran the faucet to rinse a cup. It was all so weird.
When the time came, I walked over to the Congregational church only a block away to worship. And I said a little prayer of thankfulness.
Our story so far: The finishing phase in our church conversion project was where the rubber hit the road. We encountered so many challenges, our wry son-in-law joked he was going to start a competing blog called “Everything Wrong With the Church” and reveal all our mistakes.
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The finishing detail that made me thunk my forehead with my palm came not with an element of the church, but with a piece of furniture. It was a project that spread itself over a couple of weeks and required attention from both me and Tyler.
Beat up maybe, but this abandoned headboard and footboard had potential.
The beat-up headboard and footboard we found on the side of the road in early spring? We would need a guest bed sooner rather than later, so I spent a weekend painting it. The project put me in the way of any number of contractors who required space or basement access, but it needed to be done. I ran out of paint before I finished so I used some leftover paint in a close match to finish the back (no one would ever know—unless they read the blog about Everything Wrong With the Church). When it was dry, St. Johnny and I hauled it upstairs taking care not to ding the drywall.
Via a friend, we sourced a barely-used mattress set that came with a bed frame. We counted ourselves lucky because our benefactor of the headboard and footboard did not bestow us with the frame. Tyler and I hauled it to the church, and as we were about to shove the box spring up the back stairs, we realized it wasn’t going to fit (this was a throughway designed for Sunday schoolers, not queen-sized box springs). OK, so we enlisted a few contractors to help shove it over the balcony railing the next morning.
As we set to assembling the bed frame, we realized it was designed for a headboard only. There was no way to attach the footboard. OK, so Tyler jerry-rigged a solution, spray painted it out in the yard and hauled it upstairs. Because it was jerry-rigged, it required an inordinate amount of grunting and number of screws to assemble. OK, Tyler grunted and succeeded. He and St. Johnny lugged the box spring into place …
And Tyler called me upstairs.
“Your bed doesn’t fit,” he said in summons.
“Okayyyy,” I said slowly. “Whaddya mean ‘my bed doesn’t fit’?” I had measured the headboard and knew it would be a tight fit for nightstands, but I also figured I could find a creative solution (what’s Pinterest for anyway?). I joined him at his side, looking at the bed.
“It’s not a queen headboard,” Tyler said. “It’s a king.”
Um, yeah. That’s not a queen size headboard and footboard. Nice paint job though.
We had plucked it from the street. Unloaded it into our rental unit. I had moved it to the church to paint, and touched every square inch of it. St. Johnny and I had moved it upstairs. I had measured it to determine what kind of nightstands would fit. Tyler built a frame on it to fit a queen mattress. And not until the mattress was in place did we realize the headboard was king sized.
Do you suppose we were a little distracted?
The queen mattress with the king headboard looked ridiculous. It was all wrong.
“Well, I guess we’ll be moving this down to the basement when we finish a bedroom down there,” I shrugged. There was no modifying it. “One of our guest beds in the basement will be a king, I guess.”
When we looked back upon all these finishing mistakes, they were small things. The oven fit perfectly. The kitchen sink worked like a dream. The chandeliers in the bedroom were beautiful. The shower drained like it should and felt like a luxury to use. So many things fell into place, even without a documented plan.
So the headboard was the wrong size. It made for a good story. Who’s to say it wasn’t meant to be?
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Tomorrow: Move-in day. See the master bedroom here.
Church Sweet Home 