Our story so far: The subcontractors for our drywall job at the 126-year-old Methodist church found it distasteful, so the A Team, the men who had so skillfully finished our sanctuary ceiling, got handed the ball.

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The A Team began (on Day Three) in the master bath so our tiler, You-Can-Call-Me-Al, could put down his saw and pick up his spatula again and get back to tiling.

The drywall concealed all our sins: Crooked pipes, ugly studs, awkwardly stapled insulation plus dirt and sawdust. White sheets occasionally interrupted with “5/8” CP LITE-WEIGHT FIRE-RATED” print covered everything. Even before mudding the seams, the new drywall made actual rooms out our wooden studs. People warned us our rooms would feel smaller, but I didn’t feel that way at all. Our rooms finally felt like rooms.

In completing the bathroom, the new Sheetrock sealed up our short-cut. The linen closet—an awkward eighteen-inch-square chunk of space between the mudroom, the walk-in-closet and the bathrooms—lost its status as a doorway and became what it was designed for: A closet.

After five days of hanging drywall in all the rooms on the main floor and second story, the A Team began taping the seams and mudding them, which finished all the edges nicely.

Our wall work was nothing on the scale of God’s and it was taking a lot longer than six days, but in the words of Genesis, we saw everything that we had made, and behold, it was very good.

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Today’s headline comes from “Upright Come,” a song by Patti Smith.

Tomorrow: VIP visitors. Read about them here.

Our story so far: Five tons of drywall was delivered to the 126-year-old Methodist church we were turning into our dream home.

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Day Two of drywall was less efficient than simple delivery. Our drywaller had subcontracted our job to another team. When they arrived and discovered the job was at a 126-year-old, not-perfectly straight church, and it required five-eighth-inch-and-therefore-heavier drywall, the B Team promptly left.

They left. The dour-faced workers got into their pickup truck and left the scene with nary a word.

I saw them driving away as I walked up to the church. Only I didn’t know they were our workers.

“Where are drywallers?” I asked Tyler, who was busying himself with one of the other thousand details requiring attention.

“They left.”

“Are they coming back?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

Well, they didn’t come back.

After regrouping with Tyler and explaining what the B Team didn’t verbalize before departing, our drywaller agreed to use his A Team, the same men who’d had so skillfully finished our sanctuary ceiling, but it would take longer. Despite hearing echoes of “Two weeks! Two weeks!” in my ears, we readily agreed.

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Today’s headline is a quote often attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci and sometimes to Pablo Picasso. And the message in the church sign is a paraphrase from a sermon by Pope Francis.

Tomorrow: The walls made by drywall. Check it out here.

Our story so far: After months of demolition, framing and mechanicals, spring arrived at the church we were turning into our home, and we looked forward to the next phase: Drywall, Paint & Flooring.

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The final task Tyler completed before the drywall was hung was to install the front doors. Remember? The doors for the man’s home that is his castle? We’d purchased them off Craig’s List months ago now, and they were stored in the basement, awaiting their final home. Initially, we thought we’d wait until everything else was finished, but Tyler thought it better to let the drywallers work around the castle doors, rather than pull apart their careful work later only to do it again.

The enormous arched door frame was so large, we couldn’t fit through the basement door, so it had been moved around the sanctuary fifteen times while various contractors worked around it. Now Tyler pulled off the exterior siding on the front entryway, and You-Can-Call-Me-Al helped him slide the door frame into place. Tyler’s hired man St. Johnny helped hang the heavy doors in the frame, and You-Can-Call-Me-Al performed the required cosmetic surgery so they swung smoothly.

All winter and early spring, the only evidence of any activity inside the church was the string of pickup trucks parked outside of it. Now, the whole world could see a hint of the transformation in store for the rest of the structure.

Our rustic castle doors with operational speakeasy portals were absolutely the perfect doors for the church. Even before we put back the siding and installed the exterior lights or even door handles, we earned compliments from friends and passing strangers on this exceeding public design choice.

They made me so happy.

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Tomorrow: Drywall delivery day. Read about it here.

Our story so far: A new phase of construction arrived with spring as we renovated a 126-year-old Methodist church into our home.

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The renovation phases in our project didn’t always have clearly defined beginnings and endings. Phase One, demolition, clearly began the day we purchased the church, but it continued into the mechanicals phase and beyond as we discovered new walls, windows and cubbies that required dismantling before we installed something new.

Similarly, Phase Three of drywall, paint and flooring began as soon as the drywallers finished demoing the sanctuary ceiling. They immediately drywalled and painted it, and the ceiling simply overlooked all the work being done during Phase Two of framing and mechanicals.

But we treasured a clear marker at the end of framing and mechanicals. The building inspector officially approved our rough-in. Approval! This was necessary in order to proceed with covering the studded walls which contained all the precious and expensive—but unimaginative—plumbing, wiring and HVAC ducting. Finally, the dirty demolition phase and boring mechanicals phase were behind us. Let the fun begin!

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Tomorrow: Measures of our success. Read about them here.

Our story so far: As reality has caught up with this blog about converting a 126-year-old Methodist church into our home, I’ve run across a few odds and ends that occurred after I wrote about the subject initially. That’s how it goes with a real-time memoir. Sometimes stuff happens after publication. So this week, I’m sharing a few little stories that will ultimately be integrated into the relevant location in the memoir. Think of this as the time in the novel—especially a mystery novel—when you page back to reread a few passages to remind yourself about what’s going on. Here’s an update for Chapter 21.

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To wrap up the balcony, Tyler constructed cross joists from the pergola to the north and south walls of the church. These were narrower than the center part of the balcony in order to clear the spiral stairway on the north side and the front window on the south. With the science part complete, a bit of art was necessary to draw the main part of the balcony together with the narrow part; Tyler planned a dramatic scallop and swoop to soften the edges of the balcony.

You-Can-Call-Me-Al was an even better carpenter than he was tiler. He picked up in execution where Tyler’s grand plans left off, and he built the most graceful sweeps constructed of wood you’ve ever seen.

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Tomorrow: Insulation works. See how here.

Our story so far: As reality has caught up with this blog about converting a 126-year-old Methodist church into our home, I’ve run across a few odds and ends that occurred after I wrote about the subject initially. That’s how it goes with a real-time memoir. Sometimes stuff happens after publication. So this week, I’m sharing a few little stories that will ultimately be integrated into the relevant location in the memoir. Think of this as the time in the novel—especially a mystery novel—when you page back to reread a few passages to remind yourself about what’s going on. Here’s an update for Chapter 20.

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Those cute niches flippers always build into the shower wall on HGTV look so pretty when the house is staged with candlelight and floral arrangements, but in practical use the shower niche is an eyesore of mismatched face wash and deep conditioners.

In the initial design of our custom shower, we intended to hide our extra-large shower niche in the corner, mostly hidden by the wall to which the glass door would be attached. At least our shampoo would be mostly obscured to looky-loos poking their heads inside our master bath to get a look.

But then we discovered the pre-engineered insets wouldn’t fit between the studs on that wall. You-Can-Call-me-Al offered to create a custom niche, which was a reasonable solution until Tyler discovered the inserts would fit neatly inside the glass-door wall. Even better, our niche would only be visible from the shower. Ta-da! No more ugly shampoo cluttering the impressive view of the shower.

Happy accident.

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Tomorrow: What do you mean, balcony swoop? Check it out here.

Our story so far: As reality has caught up with this blog about converting a 126-year-old Methodist church into our home, I’ve run across a few odds and ends that occurred after I wrote about the subject initially. That’s how it goes with a real-time memoir. Sometimes stuff happens after publication. So this week, I’m sharing a few little stories that will ultimately be integrated into the relevant location in the memoir. Think of this as the time in the novel—especially a mystery novel—when you page back to reread a few passages to remind yourself about what’s going on. Here’s an update for Chapter 19.

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The floor plan for the main floor required Tyler to close off the exterior side entry which was unnecessary in our master bedroom and build a new doorway. The new doorway in the north wall of the church in an area Tyler called the mudroom would someday lead to the garage.

In February, this door was just a little spray paint and imagination but in April, Tyler installed and one of his skilled laborers installed the actual door, a modern piece with a little leaded glass detail. At this point, it still lead to nowhere, but now the drywallers could work around it.

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Tomorrow: A quest. For tile. Read about it here.