We Bought a Church

You know my addiction to looking at real estate ads. I've looked at everything from

to

to

But recently my husband and I stumbled across this:

and without giving it time to frighten us, we bought it. It's on a double lot within walking distance of a conservation area, in a little village twenty minutes from the nearest Walmart, and an equal distance from Lake Huron. It was super inexpensive, but we will eventually need to do some rather costly things like replacing the furnace and maybe the septic system. We will make an apartment in the basement, and the balcony/choir loft will be my writing and weaving space. The big empty sanctuary with its 20-foot ceilings will become...well, anything! Meditation hall, yoga space, bagpipe practising space, emergency evacuation centre, woodworking studio---anything it needs to be, we've got the space for it! Just have to figure out zoning and all that. Right now it' still zoned institutional.

The church was the hub of the community for many years, known for its music and the annual fall suppers that fed up to 800 people. It functioned as a church from 1939 to 2012. We will bring back the food and music, restore it as much as possible to the original, and make it a gathering space for people.

The best part of the church is its 11 stained glass windows, which are in need of repair because the lead cames have softened and sagged at the knees, leaving the windows bowed and stressed. One by one we are removing them, and I am gently coaxing them flat again, repairing the stress cracks, replacing the cement, and re-soldering the joints. My husband is doing the woodworking, restoring the frames that hold them in place. Each window is inscribed with someone's name, in memory of them, and I've looked them up on Ancestry.ca to learn more about who they were.

It's going to be a long labour of love, a project that will probably take years, so I think I will start a separate blog to track its progress. So in case I get a little quiet on this blog, you'll know where I am.