Abandoned Churches

(Don't forget the book giveaway.)

I always had a fantasy about buying an old church and making it my home. I'm not a religious person at all, but I am spiritual. No matter how people come about their spirituality, a church is an interesting place to contain a lot of people having spiritual experiences at one time and so for that reason they intrigue the psychic in me. I've had a long-time love affair with abandoned places. You put the two things together and you get this beautiful video:



When I win the lottery or become a best-selling author--I want to renovate one of the ones in the video? Or, perhaps I could settle for a new home in PA, this one (below) is only $99,000. There's more listed here.

Comments

  1. I've had the same desire. I want a nice stone gothic revival church to refurbish into a home. I even have something sketched out based upon the floorplan of one I saw once that was the perfect size. The sanctuary would be like a "great hall", broken into different living and dining spaces and the offices and classrooms expanded into bedrooms. The tower would lead up to this hidden little bedroom or office with those great gothic arch windows.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Damn! Are we leading parallel lives? I wanted the bell tower as a round circular seating area with pillows to watch storms and have a telescope. I agree about having the open floor plan. I think I'd put the kitchen behind the pulpit. Hee hee
    I would seriously want to reuse the benches and anything I could find inside. Stained glass would get a super thumbs up.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's funny, in NYC there was a very famous club in the 90s call the Limelight. It used to be church. In the 2000s they shut down the club for drug reasons. Now it's a mall. So going in there blows my mind on two previous levels. Still if it was abandoned I'd be freaked out. I'm sure of it. Guess that's what I was trying to say in my 'round about way.

    ReplyDelete
  4. CB;
    Yeah, somehow abandoned bases, abandoned missile silos, abandoned schools and churches for some reason call to me a lot. Sure, abandoned hospitals are mental wards are wicked cool, but these places were built for function and so they're really interesting when they've emptied out.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wow - very cool video, I loved the music. Some the shots in that were amazing. My husband and I had a chance to look at a huge old church for sale when we were house shopping. We weren't interested in it but we still kick ourselves for not at least checking it out!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Heather, wow! That would have been so cool. When I was a teen, my parents were looking for an unusual place and they found a 4-story mill in West Virginia. It was huge and gorgeous and had the paddle wheel on the water. I was the most haunted place I'd ever been inside of and I wanted to live there so badly, but it was the middle of literally nowhere and my folks had to finish me from school, so we move west instead. I always regreted that because it was sooooo neat!

    ReplyDelete
  7. An old church would make a cool home. I always wanted to renovate an old firehouse too.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Julie;
    That would be cool and I think I know what I'd do with the pole.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Abandoned churches are very creepy.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Echo;
    I just loved the ones in that film. I have a goal of photographing and exploring an abandoned one but they aren't easy to find in the west.

    ReplyDelete
  11. That is too cool. We have talked about buying an old church as well, but it would HAVE to come with the cemetery.

    Ps - Got the mask. Awesome.

    ReplyDelete
  12. MM;
    Glad you loved the mask, buddy. I knew it found a great home. I'd been waiting for just the right follower to come along that gave me a sign they'd be the new owner. Folks don't realize it, but I often pick up subtle cues from followers and then try to bring a little good luck their way. I agree about the cemetery. Goes without saying--I need the comfort of some eternally resting folks in the center of a spiritual vessel to feel truly content.

    ReplyDelete
  13. autumnforest...one of my email friends is from spain, but when we first started writing, she was married & she & her husband lived in a church in london!

    ReplyDelete
  14. That is such a cool idea! Seriously...I may have to copy you and buy an old church as well, but mine would be extremely gothic. :)

    I mean steeples, gargoyles, stained glass, etc.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Marcus;
    I might have to outbid you on that, one, buddy. Damn! If mine didn't have gargoyles, I'd put them on there. I love the thought of the kinds of parties one could have in a huge church building with a cemetery out back. It would also unsettle the neighbors having me live there. They'd know I'm a freak.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I always love the old churches in France. I would love to buy one of those and fix it up.

    ReplyDelete
  17. So you could live in the bell tower. And living in the bell tower you'd have all that room downstairs where the pews used to be in, and havin' all that room after you take out all the pews, you wouldn't have to take out your garbage for a long time... ;D

    ReplyDelete
  18. Gummer;
    You worry about taking out the trash much?

    Yeah, well, my hair is like Rapunzel, I could possibly get a prince to climb my braid. I loved that story as a kid.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I really wanted to turn a particular abandoned church into a bar. I passed it nearly every day and it was always covered with masses of pigeons, so naturally it would have been called The Roost.

    It just wasn't meant to be :P

    ReplyDelete
  20. I'd have called it "The Pulpit" or "The Confessional" Very wicked. Maybe the bartender could hand you drinks through that little divider with curtains around you...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment