Our story so far: After months of preamble, the vanity in the master bath of the converted Methodist church came together in a matter of about forty-eight hours with tradesmen practically crawling over each other to get work done.
# # #
While he was there, the glass guy spent several hours installing our coveted glass shower door. The one we drooled over so many months ago when we were trying to make the numbers work. And the rainfall shower head. Oh. Oh. Oh. My brother-in-law installed a rainfall shower head in his and my sister’s home. It was divine (and theirs wasn’t even in a church), and I knew what I was missing. How I longed to stand under those water drops for an entire afternoon.
Just to remind you how far we’ve come, that corner on the right is where our master shower is now. This room had been used mostly recently in the church as an office. The window in the center of the picture is in our new bathroom, and the wall on the far left was moved to where the beam is; the window on the left is in our bedroom.Here’s that corner post-demo with two walls of the shower framed in.And here’s the tiled shower with the fixtures and the glass walls installed.
# # #
Tomorrow: Chapter 38 wraps up with a look at the master closet. Check it out here.
Our story so far: We crossed things off our list as we finished some details on the old Methodist church we were turning into our home.
# # #
Glimfeather, our plumber, returned. He still was a fan of strange hours (Sundays, Friday evenings) but he didn’t linger until 2 o’clock in the morning anymore.
It was so odd for me to see a man washing his hands in one of my sinks. For months, I had no sinks. Then for weeks, I had no faucets. And for days, I feared running the water (was the drain connected yet? Did I dare find out?). When I witnessed the plumber washing his hands, I knew: The system was operational. Glory be.
The plumbing in the kitchen was nothing particularly special (unless you consider a pot filler special) though I was inordinately excited about having a garbage disposal and a dishwasher again. It was the master bath plumbing that had me singing like Carly Simon: “An-ti-ci-pa-yay-tion … is making me wait.”
Coincidentally (if coordinating multiple tradesmen is ever coincidental), the vanity in the master bath came together in a matter of about forty-eight hours. You-Can-Call-Me-Al installed the tin ceiling and flanking cabinets, Low Talker painted the tin, Glimfeather installed the faucets and the glass guy installed my elegantly arched mirrors. We weren’t quite done—primarily, we needed lights, outlet covers, towel rings and knobs like an apothecary cabinet maker—but we got mighty close. That double-sink vanity made me want to brush my teeth. I would never have to share a mirror again!
Mirror, mirror, mirror on the wall.
# # #
Tomorrow: Do you see what I see? A shower, a shower, dancing in the water. Read about it here.
Our story so far: We wrapped up details by the day as we prepared to move into the old Methodist church we were turning into our home.
# # #
The electrician returned to install light fixtures and electrify outlets. He had wired the place months before and hooked up some of our lights and fans, but when we walked through the church in the evenings, we used flashlights to see where we were going in most rooms.
First stop: The kitchen. Most of the can lights were already operational, but he did the finishing work and hung our island pendant lights.
And evening shot of the pendant lights above the kitchen island. If you look closely, you can see the seeded glass.
Then he spent quite a bit of time in the bedroom. I could hardly wait to hang the crystals on the nightstand chandeliers, the ones that once hung in the sanctuary. I washed what felt like a hundred of them only to discover I had enough for only one chandelier. It looked lovely. I spent over an hour looking for the other crystals we had salvaged during the demolition phase. But I came up empty. I had stashed them so well, they weren’t going to turn up until we moved boxes into the church. Fingers crossed.
I also discovered a number of lights I failed to order back in April when I ordered lights for every bathroom: The back stairway, the laundry room, the water closet. I went back to the Lighting Savant to peruse his piles of catalogs; more light fixtures went on order.
# # #
Tomorrow: The kitchen backsplash is perfect. Check it out here.
Our story so far: The finishing details were coming together in the old Methodist church we had been renovating into a home for several months.
# # #
After a lot of debate about how to install the carpeting over the edge of the balcony, the actual installation on a warm day a couple of weeks before Labor Day went well. The off-white Snowflake with a silvery pattern looked lux. Only white wine drinkers allowed.
Since we were still generating construction dust and maneuvering a parade of contractors through the building, our light-colored carpeting would need temporary protection. Tyler invested in a couple of rolls of industrial carpet wrap. Imagine a giant, three-foot wide roll of super sticky Saran Wrap. Great concept. Tricky execution.
The carpeting installer did not put this stuff down. We did.
Tyler tried rolling it down himself, and even with his strength and wingspan, it was impossible. This was a two-person job.
He held the giant roll while I yanked it out with both hands in four or five foot lengths, balanced the flimsy sheet with one hand and cut it with a knife in the other and then, on my knees, stuck it down along all the edges. Frequently, the stuff would stick to itself. There was no going back. That piece was toast.
About twenty minutes in, I noticed I was getting splashed when I yanked the plastic off the roll. Tyler, who was standing over the roll, was sweating on it, and when I yanked the sheet, droplets of his perspiration popped up at me.
Exercise and a shower, too. Double duty.
The sticky on this stuff was truly industrial strength. Even a month later, it was sticking to the carpet, keeping it clean.
As with most of my After pictures in this era, you’re going to have to imagine the space without the construction materials.
Our story so far: Nine months in, we were down to refining details on the first and second floors of the old Methodist church we were turning into our home.
# # #
Some projects that would be considered minor in any normal renovation hogged time in this one (refinishing the floors was probably Exhibit A). But window coverings, too. We purchased blinds for every window on the first and second floors because, well, some of those windows were on the first floor and now they had clear glass. We didn’t want to see the neighbors all the time, and they didn’t want to see us all the time either. One or two or four blinds was a small project. Hanging fourteen blinds, some from twelve feet high, required all day.
Once they were hung, the windows took on a new feel. Instead of being wide-open public windows, they looked like windows that belonged in a home. I liked it.
Here’s how the main floor windows look pre-painting and blinds.And here’s how they looked after paint and blinds. In this shot, you can see the original etched glass in the transom windows.
We hung basic white wood-like blinds in all the windows except the master bedroom, where Tyler hung light-blocking Roman shades. Well, he hung them in one of the bedroom windows. The other window presented a dilemma. One of the corners was eclipsed by the bottom of the stairway. He hauled the standard Roman shade to his mother and delegated this problem to her to solve. She is a talented seamstress who once sewed my wedding gown. If she couldn’t solve this pentagonal problem, no one could.
One Roman shade hangs in the bedroom windows. The other window presents a bit of a challenge.
# # #
Today’s headline comes from an internet meme. Google “home is where the pants aren’t,” and you might be surprised about how many T-shirts, wall signs and coffee cups come up.
Tomorrow: Better than Saran Wrap. Read about it here.
Our story so far: We were seeing the pay off of months of hard work in the renovation of an old Methodist church into our home.
# # #
Time will tell.
Another small detail that caught the eye of a lot of people who looked at images of our floors was the clock we put up above the interior entryway doors.
I coveted a clock like this even before we purchased the church. If you watch “Fixer Upper” even a couple of times, you’re bound to see a clock—usually with hard-to-decipher Roman numerals because it doesn’t even matter if you’re using it to tell time—in the After reveal; “oversized clock” was listed in our design style. When I found an airy, wrought-iron clock in the showroom of our glass guy, I purchased it on the spot.
Originally, I had planned to put it up on the fireplace, but we decided we had enough going on up there. We enlisted You-Can-Call-Me-Al, who could be depended on for straight-and-level installation, to put it up inside the interior entryway doors. Many more items would be hung on the walls in future weeks, but this one went up while we still had tall ladders at the ready.
Our story so far: My husband celebrated his birthday with a litany of complaints about the enormity of the church conversion project we had taken on.
# # #
Tyler’s birthday wasn’t the only occasion that week overshadowed by work at the church. A few days after Tyler aged another year, we celebrated a milestone wedding anniversary: Ten years.
Since we were buying things for the church like Home Depot shopping addicts, we agreed we didn’t need to exchange gifts for our anniversary, but I requested earlier in the month that we mark the occasion by going out to eat. Tyler obliged by making dinner reservations.
When our anniversary arrived, I realized I would be spending the entire day on my hands and knees. Hand-washing every square foot of wood floors in the church so Tyler could apply the last two coats of polyurethane before we left for the weekend.
If I didn’t do this, all the dust and tiny paint splatters on the floors would be forever encased in a layer of shellac, reminding me of my sloth and sloppiness.
I donned a pair of kneepads and began on the second floor. It was about 10 o’clock, and at this point, I was sure we would not achieve our goal because the floor of the sanctuary was still covered in ram board, miscellaneous cabinets and tools. But while I washed the pine upstairs, Tyler and his hired man St. Johnny cleared and vacuumed the sanctuary so by 1:30 when I finished the upstairs and the main floor master suite, I moved to the enormous empty open-floor-plan great room.
I earned a repetitive-stress strain in my shoulder by performing the same sweeping wiping motion with a wet rag a thousand times. Hand mopping sawdusty floors required me to refill my wash bucket several times for each room. Remember, at that point, the only running water in the church was in the basement. So I made many trips up and down two flights of stairs. I also scraped off paint splatters where I found them, so I carried sharp implements in my pockets (which, not infrequently, poked me, too). Fortunately, our painter prepped well, so there were few drops of paint to remove.
I finished washing at 4 o’clock, just in time for a much-needed shower before dinner, while Tyler wrapped up the first coat of polyurethane (to be specific, it was the third coat in total, but it was the first of the final two coats—if you’re counting down, which believe me, we were).
We dined on steak and pasta, which we most definitely earned.
The granite counter top on the island hadn’t been installed yet.
The next morning, we surveyed the results before Tyler applied the final coat of polyurethane and we decamped elsewhere and left it all to dry. The way everything looked was the best anniversary gift ever. In the morning sun with the lights on, the kitchen literally glowed. The sawdust and tools were gone, and the floors gleamed.
I tiptoed around in my bare feet, taking pictures like a pro with both our phones so we could share the results with every last person we might encounter over the long weekend. We were so proud of ourselves. The pain and effort were worth it.
# # #
Tomorrow: What time is it? No more guessing. Read about about it here.
Our story so far: We neared the finish line in at least a few spaces of the old Methodist church we were turning into our home.
# # #
Among the finishing details I enjoyed watching come to fruition was the door to our granddaughter’s playhouse, the space under the eaves we’d named for her.
Here’s a shot of the second floor when we purchased the church. See that door on the right? It led to a storage space under the eaves. The “Do Not Open” sign we ignored is on the table there.
More than once, I was amused to see a grown man working in that little five-foot-high space. The drywallers installed drywall, and the painter painted it. I sanded the floors with the edging machine (it was less amusing when I was the one on my knees).
Tyler recycled the old closet door that had led to the opposite eaves. When we’d first toured the church, a hand-lettered sign was posted on the closet door warning: “Do not open!” Behind it was a lot of dust and debris.
He removed several layers of paint until he revealed the last layer—a distressed sea foam green that I loved. He cut it to size, and I applied a couple of coats of clear polyurethane. He attached it to our granddaughter’s playhouse with some vintage-y black hinges; all we required now was a cool door knob. Our soon-to-be-walking granddaughter would find this little room to be just her size.
Here are the eaves on the other side of the room (the belfry side), where the little door on the left now leads to our granddaughter’s playhouse. (And how about those floors?)Here’s a close-up of the door.
# # #
Tomorrow: More floors. This one you don’t want to miss. Click here.
Our story so far: Cabinets throughout the old Methodist church were installed, and the place was beginning to look like a home.
# # #
Like the installation of our balcony railing, the installation of our counter tops was quick and satisfying. A week after the experts came to measure, they returned with finished stone and manhandled it into place. Because of the complexity of our kitchen island, they dry-fitted the granite during that second visit and returned a few days later to glue the finished pieces into place.
Hub of activity.
There was only one hiccup. Part of the beverage bar did not fit the first time. It had to be removed and refinished. Moving massive pieces of quartz and granite is not for the faint-hearted. At least four men were involved with every piece. I was reminded yet again about how heavy construction materials were, and grateful for the named and nameless men who helped us move items into the church.
When they completed their work, I would tour the church in the evenings, when everyone else was gone and quiet had descended on the place. I would pass my fingers along the cool, smooth stone of the countertops and, depending what room I was in, I’d imagine what it would be like to brush my teeth or chop vegetables or make a cup of coffee. We were nearing the point at which we’d have an operational bathroom, bedroom and kitchen which meant we could move into the church. All we needed now was a few tweaks by the electrician and by Glimfeather, our plumber (Glimfeather was on toilet duty, too). We were on to Phase Five: Finishing.
Well, if you wanted glorious After shots of the installed granite, you’re going to have to wait (which is fair, since I have to wait, too). But these pictures give you an idea.Clearly, we’re still in a work zone. This is part of the beverage bar counter top.Master vanity counter top.Upstairs vanity. Those rectangle pieces of packaging paper? Mirrors, silly.
# # #
Tomorrow: Chapter 38 begins, telling of finishing details. Read it here.
Our story so far: We installed the kitchen and bathroom cabinets in the old Methodist church we were turning into a residence.
# # #
This was the view from the mudroom into the master closet, with the laundry at the other end.
Throughout construction—especially after drywall—people asking about the window in our closet amused me.
No, we did not design a window into the closet.
But the hole at the end of the closet looked like a window for a while.
Instead, it was a slot for a bank of cabinets in the mudroom. They were designed at a height that would allow us to place a pew beneath them. Yes, a church pew! Tyler had owned this pew for decades; at one time he was responsible for shortening it and refinishing it. It sat just inside the front door of our previous home so people could sit to remove or put on their shoes. It would serve the same purpose in the new mudroom, which led from the garage.
One of our design rules was to build storage into every room, and the mudroom was no exception. A quick look at design magazines and blogs will tell you every homeowner’s headache is the “drop zone” in the entryway forever filled with clutter. A single little pew wasn’t going to cut it. But a bank of cabinets to store keys and purses, shopping lists and shopping bags, flashlights and lightbulbs might do the trick.
Tyler assembled the cabinets, and You-Can-Call-Me-Al installed them and trimmed them out. Suddenly the empty maw into the master closet smiled like an old man with new teeth. No one would be asking about the window in our closet anymore.
Church Sweet Home 