“When this place popped up, it felt like the right renovation problem”
(Images by David Nikolic)
When a 130-year-old church in Princeton, Ontario, went up on the market in 2018, Jonathon Harmer couldn’t shake the concept the place would make a fantastic household dwelling. An iron-and-woodworker by commerce, Harmer had pushed by the constructing with white entrance doorways and an emerald steeple numerous occasions whereas rising up within the close by city of Drumbo. He was visiting a pal in B.C. when the church went in the marketplace, so he enlisted his accomplice, Lynn Perreault, who lived close by, to scope out the place.
Perreault stood in entrance of the 26-foot-tall constructing that had been largely untouched for a decade. It wanted sweeping repairs: the ceilings and partitions have been due for a paint job, the scaffolding was coming aside and the flooring wanted to be sanded. However the pair have been already contemplating shopping for their first dwelling collectively, so the place others noticed a derelict church, they noticed a possibility. “Jonathon is a woodworker who tears down barns for a dwelling, I construct furnishings and do inside design, and we’re each welder-fitters,” says Perreault. “So when this popped up, it felt like the right renovation problem. We informed one another: ‘Let’s rework this place into a house.’”
The couple purchased the church within the fall of 2018 for about $300,000. By subsequent April, Perreault and Harmer had bought their respective residences, Harmer had come again to Ontario, and the pair moved right into a 300-square-foot trailer on the church’s half-acre property. With a staff of family and friends, together with Perreault’s 15-year-old son and Harmer’s 83-year-old father, they went to work from 6 a.m. to sunset, seven days every week, all led by Jean-Marc, Perreault’s contractor brother.
RELATED: This classic Ontario dwelling combines retro space-age glamour with Twenty first-century perks
Instantly, the venture proved extra sophisticated than anticipated: securing a mortgage to fund their renovations took weeks as a result of native banks have been hesitant to again such an uncommon and lofty construct. Then the development acquired off to a tough begin. The constructing staff needed to dig up the whole yard to put in a brand new sewage system, redo all {the electrical} wiring and join the constructing to the Princeton energy grid earlier than even beginning renovations. “There was some extent once we questioned if we’d bitten off a bit greater than we might chew,” says Perreault.
After these hiccups got here months of intensive development. To retailer supplies for the venture, the staff needed to construct a workshed outdoors. Then they constructed a entrance porch for the church made from timber, and erected cedar partitions inside to separate the rooms of their new format, which included a kitchen, a bed room, a rest room and a grand room with brown and black arches. The second flooring, in the meantime, was normal right into a loft.
The staff spent eight days eradicating carpets, they usually additionally retiled and repainted the whole ceiling on 20-foot-tall scaffolds, just for Perreault to do all of it once more by herself when the couple realized they needed a whiter paint. They toned down the church’s extra spiritual options by eradicating the mosaic glass home windows and donating a lot of the church pews to the Princeton congregation. As a nod to the constructing’s previous, they stored the church bell and even rang it commonly throughout pandemic lockdowns to brighten the neighborhood’s temper.
Renovation prices had already surpassed half 1,000,000 {dollars}, so Harmer and Perreault made it their purpose to beautify the church on a price range. “I’ve all the time cherished trying round for reclaimed supplies in my design initiatives,” says Perreault. “It’s an actual cash saver and an journey.” To construct the staircase, they purchased native cedar and sourced rebar and spindles from a close-by public sale. The kitchen island was once a 13-foot counter from a neighborhood hair salon, and the bench within the lobby was an previous church pew. They flipped one other pew on its aspect, hung it on the kitchen wall and normal it right into a body that holds the hood fan above the range. Harmer and Perreault additionally purchased classic lavatory sinks and stored the traditional hanging church lights to brighten up the place.
After seven months, the staff lastly wrapped up their venture. “Our household made this attainable, and simply the best a part of dwelling on this huge house was being able to host them for meals and evenings collectively,” Harmer says. In time, folks far past their household bushes additionally started to admire the couple’s creation. When their realtor, Brian Ellis, posted a video of the completed church on TikTok, viewers from Sweden, Greece and Thailand requested Perreault and Harmer about their constructing course of. The renovation garnered a lot consideration that they bought Chippy Church T-shirts and mugs, named after their dwelling’s traditional white doorways which can be painted in a naturally aged, chipped fashion.
After dwelling within the church for 2 years, Perreault and Harmer realized that though they have been happy with their dwelling, in addition they needed a extra distant way of life. In 2021, they bought the property for $1.2 million and moved two hours’ drive north to Burk’s Falls, Ontario. Nonetheless craving a problem, the couple purchased a second church, this time with the purpose of changing it right into a duplex. “We cherished the primary construct a lot that we need to do it some place else,” says Perreault. “We’re calling it the Chippy Church Journey 2.0.”
