The details

We've had a little more time now to figure some things out about this church of ours. Built in 1939, the United Church functioned and served the community until 2012, when it was closed due to a dwindling in the congregation. There was talk about tearing it down if it didn't sell. It's on a double lot within a small hamlet that boasts a ball park, a gas station, and a pallet-making company. There also appears to be some sort of fruit market, but it's always closed. It's five minutes from the Home Hardware, twenty minutes from the nearest WalMart and TSC (a fascinating hardware store you have to visit if you never have), and there's no pizza delivery or anything of that nature available. On one side is a house, on the other side is a complex of seven townhouses, across and down the street is a cute house built in the 1850s, and directly behind it is someone's park-like backyard full of trees and---apparently every Thursday night---people on yoga mats.

Intriguingly, the church is in an area once settled by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) in the 1830s. Those early Saints left to join the body of the church shortly thereafter in Nauvoo, Illinois, to meet their fate when the Mormons were expelled from the U.S. and made their famous trek west to what is now Utah. They left behind a road forged through the Canadian wilderness that now bears the name Nauvoo Road. Now here I am, also a Mormon, originally from Utah, returning to the same area almost 190 years later. We’re baaaack! 

On the day of closing, my husband and I drove down a load of basics---toaster, air mattress, vacuum, pots and pans---and took our first really open-eyed walk through the building. The first impression was one of solidity and sturdiness. A few places in the bricks needed some repointing. There are eleven stained glass windows, each dedicated in the memory of someone, but a well-intentioned soul put plexiglass over them to conserve heat, and the resulting build-up of heat between the glass and the plexiglass has softened the lead and caused the windows to sag at the knees. They will need restoring. I have no idea what that entails.

There is also some wonkiness to the air flow, so that the big empty sanctuary upstairs is hot and dry, while the lower level is cool and damp. We will have to figure out the oil furnace, which is new to us. We will have to locate the septic system, which the previous owner couldn't locate, which tells us no one has cleaned it out in a long time. 

The next day we drove down again to spend the weekend. We discovered the following:

• an air mattress is not the most comfortable thing to sleep on. 
• the portable air conditioner we bought has to vent out a window, making it not so portable.
• the purportedly new fridge took a full day to scrub out, and the freezer drawer won't open.
• the purportedly new oven took a full day to scrub as well.
• orange oil brings an amazing polish to the glowing woodwork...and there's a lot of woodwork.

The kitchen is a typical church kitchen, with Formica from 1965 that looks like it's out of a diner. You know the type, white with coloured dots, with metal trim on the edge. The plywood cupboards have been lacquered lovingly over many years, making them smooth and fun to touch. The ceilings are high, and the cupboards go right to the top, full of spiders and dead flies. There is a long counter with hatches one can lower to serve food out into the rec room, and another hatch through which dirty dishes could be returned. The sink is pulled two feet out from the wall, and I can picture Mabel at the church supper, collecting dirty dishes from the hatch and carrying them around behind the sink to dump them in, out of the way of the ladies scurrying around serving the meal. 

I vacuumed out the cupboards, polished them with wood restorer, and tried to figure out how to fit my scant belongings into them logically. Some of the shelves are permanently fixed so close together that you can't get a can of soup on them. I have no idea what they used them for. A giant spice rack? There's a hand-turned pencil sharpener stuck to one of the cupboards, and two bulletin boards. Just what every well-appointed kitchen needs!

We looked up the history of the church on line. Apparently it was a busy place at one time, with over 100 children in its Sunday School, and the annual fall supper fed over 700 people over three hours. It was a place known for music, with guest musicians coming from as far away as Detroit. Which suits us fine, because we're all about food and music in our family. My husband especially enjoys inviting people to dinner (I'm more the introverted type, but I enjoy the dinners too, because he's a fantastic cook). Interestingly, the church also apparently sent missionaries to Nepal, and that connection is serendipitous too, because my husband is a keen practitioner of meditation with an interest in Buddhism. It is sad that such a hub of the community had to close as the congregation shrank.

Hubby took his bagpipes up to the sanctuary to test out the accoustics. (Secretly, I think that's why he wanted the place -- free practice space! It's tricky to find places to practise the pipes. It's a misunderstood and much-maligned instrument. But I digress.) The sound bounces off the twenty-foot ceiling and echoes back to the wood floor, causing an amazing ringing that I could hear from down the street (I took the dog for a walk, because he tends to howl when the pipes start up). If my husband climbs to the choir loft/balcony, the sound doesn't bounce from the ceiling in the same way, since he's closer to it. Instead, it cascades over the railing down to the floor below, with less echo.

The neighbours will know we're here, at any rate.

At night, we turned on the sanctuary lights and went out on the lawn to see the stained glass windows from the outside. A modest light came through them. And then we noticed fireflies, twinkling by the dozens in the hedge and lawn and trees like Christmas lights. Or fairies. We have landed in a magical place!