The pros and cons of living in a converted ecclesiastical building.

I do believe the rector is buried underneath the altar in the living room. And the garden? Yep. I see dead people. Lots of them. But unlike the conversion I was shown in a former convent while apartment hunting in Seville, Spain, anyone buried in the lawn of the Hunter-Green house in Suffolk, England has been dead for at least two, maybe three hundred years. A comfortable distance.

While I can be a bit Billy Bob about certain conversions (the actor famously admitted to being an antique-phobe whereas I take umbrage with converted convents, monasteries, and burned-out turn of the century barns), this old chapel house is a place I could live, for a few days.

The Hunter-Green house, what the family lovingly refers to as The Chapel, was originally built in 1750 as a United Reform church in the tiny village of Rendham. It was expanded in 1834, though it remained empty from 1979 until the family bought it in 1991.

Doug Hunter and Ros Green, who produce multi-disciplinary festivals including the upcoming Polish Arts Festival, took on the task of converting it into a home – making bedrooms for themselves and their three children out of transepts, a kitchen out of the apse and a sitting-room from the nave – a process that is not so unusual in this part of the English countryside.

During the past four decades, the Church of England has declared some 1,500 churches “redundant.” About 30 new redundancies are made available each year and they often end up on the real estate market, though only 20 to 30 per cent are suitable for residential use.

The Church of England maintains a set of guidelines for converting chapels or churches into homes. In brief, it’s not easy. There are often consultations to be had with the former congregation and the parochial church council. “Planning permission” and “listed building consent” must be sought. There are the bats in the belfry to contend with, too. Seriously. Because they are legally protected, bats cannot be evicted. A real problem if the roof ever caves in, as they tend to do being several hundred years old.

And then, of course, there are the dead people. If corpses are underfoot, the law requires that they be removed and re-interred elsewhere. That is, if building proposals are likely to disturb graves. Otherwise, they stay. With the bats.

For some, the concept of living in a church, chapel or anywhere near a graveyard might seem a bit macabre or Addams family-esque. I have been a house guest at The Chapel on two occasions. The first time, admittedly, I was hesitant to venture to the bathroom alone in the middle of the night for fear of disturbing the dead vicar. Bravely putting supernatural paranoias aside, one is able to appreciate the more soulful side of living in a converted house of God.

“A Jehovah’s witness came to the door once and asked what it was like living in a church,” Doug wrote in an email. “I said it was great because you could dwell in God’s House before you die as well. He looked bewildered, but I thought it was funny.”

The chapel also serves as a community gathering place during the family’s annual village Christmas party. Friends of the couple have wed on their altar and more poignantly, it’s been a refuge for society’s most misunderstood: teenagers.

“This chapel has been a sanctuary to many people…[especially] for our kid’s friends who have had trouble at home. They still come and pour out their hearts on occasion.”

Most renovated (or restored) ecclesiastical buildings seek to maintain the original features of the structure – such as stained glass windows and original choir organs. Vaulted, double-height ceilings are a particular draw, as well as the open space and inherent character of living in a truly unique home.

The downsides, of course, which I’ve experienced first hand, are the cold nights and drafty mornings that accompany all that open space and antiquated charm. Corporal discomforts aside however, converting a chapel into a house is a fine example of upcycling at its holiest.

Images: K. Emily Bond; Travelet; Location Works

The post Notes From Suffolk: Home Is Where The Chapel Is appeared first on EcoSalon.

It’s a classic feud predicated upon the idea I have my land, now you cannot have yours.

In this case, the land is the pristine white beach that stretches along the Florida Panhandle, a beach that has been restored over the past 30 years through a renourishment and restoration program.

Turns out homeowners with wonderful views of the green waters of the Gulf of Mexico have challenged the program to save eroding shorelines because the new strips of sand imported belong to the public and not to them.

According to the Washington Post, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the homeowners’ property rights had not been infringed upon. And now those homeowners have produced a new challenge, stating their constitutional rights and 100 years of common law have been ignored in support of the program.

The  U.S. Supreme Court will hear the argument next week, considering whether a decision by the judicial branch, rather than the executive or legislative, can create the kind of private property seizure forbidden by the Constitution. The court has yet to decide whether restoring storm-damaged beaches is an unconstitutional taking of private property.

“It’s one of the great open questions” in property law, said D. Benjamin Barros, a law professor at Widener University who edits a blog on such topics.

Most often, the money spent on Florida’s beach renourishment and restoration program has gone to coastline ravaged by erosion and hurricanes. For example, Destin and Walton County spent about $22 million in 2006 to restore about six miles of beach in western Walton County and in the city. In he past, homeowners have appreciated the assistance and have filed no claims.

Main Image: Just Jennifer

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Nothing goes together like a recession and a paint brush.

If you can’t afford to remodel (and who can?) and are stuck with a peeling, fiberglass clawfoot tub, tap into some ingenuity and resource non-toxic paints and supplies, pure shower curtains, an organic floor mat and go to town.

If you’re opting to go the DIY tub redux route you will want to bone up on stripping off the old finish first. You can visit many good how-to tutorials at sites like ehow. Or,  if you have the budget, hire a tub refinishing service, like Bay Area Coatings. Either way, you are salvaging an old treasure that adds oodles of character to the modern bath.

Here are a few cool designs to inspire:

Steal this teal kids’ bath design from Canadian House and Home.

Basking in blue is oh-so-country French. Eating a baguette in the bain is nice, too. From Apartment Therapy.

How succulent is this cool citrus desert palette from Decorology?

Some lemon aid to brighten the old friend from Country Living.

Basic black is tres chic and sleek, from Happy Living Design.

Stripes to center the mod energy of the citified clawfoot, from Apartment  Therapy.

Check out other DIY ideas at this cute site.

Main Image: Fixer Upper

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Anyone who grew up on Westerns and novels such as Little House on the Prairie and My Antonia would be hard-pressed to recognise the Great Plains today. The woods and grasslands known to the native Americans and the early pioneers have largely made way for suburban sub-divisions and industrial agriculture, with a co-dependent duo of grain crops and cattle destined for feedlots.

There is a movement afoot to restore the American West to its former glory and two animal species are taking centre stage.

The first is the American buffalo, a species that is once again roaming the plains and also gracing American dinner tables.

The second, rather more controversially, is the grey wolf.

Alongside this comes the return of a diverse array of native grasses – the “miles of copper-red grass” immortalised by Willa Cather. This is not just about a return to the past – in fact, according to the Buffalo Commons, a biodiverse native prairie is also an excellent carbon sequester.

There once were over 400 million acres of wild prairie grasslands in the central part of North America. The backbone of the Buffalo Commons movement is the work – over a period of decades – to re-establish and re-connect prairie wildland reserves and ecological corridors large enough for bison and all other native prairie wildlife to survive and roam freely, over great, connected distances, while simultaneously restoring the health and sustainability of our communities wherever possible so that both land and people may prosper for a very long time.

The eco-system will not truly return to its original state without the reintroduction of the original predators, namely the grey wolf.

The Big Bad Wolf is not a popular figure in the American psyche, and even less so for the nation’s farmers. But in some parts of the country, reintroducing the wolf is exactly what is being done. Park rangers have slowly been releasing breeding pairs of wolves into Yellowstone National Park since the 90s, for example.

It’s all very well restoring the native prairie on public land, but what about private land? And how will communities support themselves without farming?

It’s hoped that eco-tourism can partly replace farming in some areas. Yet farmers are very much part of the picture, not only through personal involvement in the Buffalo Commons on the perimeter of their properties, but also by rearing buffalo for meat.

True restoration of the Great Plains relies on ranchers coming on board and ranchers rely on Americans choosing to eat buffalo rather than beef. This means that even private farmland can be planted with native grasses and form part of a healthy, functioning eco-system. Buffalo are ideal to raise from a farmer’s perspective – their preferred food grows naturally in this part of the world and they are perfectly suited to the climate.

If you are vegetarian and your dietary protein comes from organic tofu or lentils rather than any sort of meat, that’s great. If it doesn’t, there are very good arguments for at least cutting down on the meat you eat, but you might also want to consider buffalo.

It doesn’t sound like eating buffalo is any great hardship for a meat eater. Eating Well magazine, which offers several enticing recipes, describes the meat as lean and healthy, possessing a “more intense, deep flavour than beef”. Yet the true satisfaction surely comes from knowing that, by consciously choosing buffalo instead of beef, you are directly playing a role in the restoration of the Great Plains.

Image: Nicolas T

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