This Old Rectory

The Holy Redeemer Rectory we call home is in many ways the worst of both worlds. From what I know of the history of the building, it was built in 1907 . . . so it has a good number of the problems associated with such an old building. But then it was massively renovated in the 1960s . . . so it lost all of its history and now has all the charm of an Eastern Bloc apartment complex. Add to that the fact that one of our Holy Cross Brothers painted all of the rooms garish colors and you have quite the deadly mix.  

Over the past four years, during my two incarnations here at Holy Redeemer, I have been working my way through the community spaces on the lower level of the building and renovating them little by little. I did the living room during my regency year, I did the hallway and bathroom during my diaconate, and did the parlor/breakfast room during my first year of priesthood. (Pictures of all of those as time allows).

This summer I have moved onto the dining room . . . with the kitchen to follow in the fall. You can see below that it is a massive room . . . the house was built with ten bedrooms! You can also see that it was a horrendous shade I liked to call 'neon pumpkin.' (All the furniture was to one side because the pastor used it as his boxing room . . . no, I'm not kidding . . . and yes, that will be ending with this renovation!)

I've gotten the carpeting up and am preparing to put down a wood laminate floor. I've also primed all of the walls for their new color palette.

This week I also successfully cut a new doorway directly from the dining room into the kitchen. Previously, to get from the kitchen to the dining room one had to walk through two little connecting hallways . . . it was odd.  This will make the two spaces much more user-friendly, and also bring a bit of much-needed natural light into the kitchen. 

You can see here that, with the help of our director of maintenance, I was able to remove the lathe and plaster, add a new header, move the studs, and patch the surrounding plaster. Now I just need to frame the jam with finish wood.

Stay tuned for more updates and pictures as the project progresses!