My Studio

A short story about finding the church

 

In August 2014 I was lucky enough to stumble across an old, unused church in my hometown of Langholm that was for sale.  Although I wasn’t looking for a new studio I was intrigued by the opportunity to at least look at such a wonderful building, and so made a viewing appointment. 

As we walked up to look at the church for the first time, Craig and I agreed to play it cool – not look too enthusiastic, point out some potential issues, look concerned and try to give the impression that we’d have to be persuaded to take on such an old building. 

It didn’t quite go that way!

As we entered the church we saw the huge windows on three sides of the building, the beautiful stained glass windows on the fourth wall, and immediately lost the cool, hard-faced persona we’d tried so hard to put on!  Running around like giddy schoolchildren, we discovered toilets, a kitchen, a room downstairs that was perfect for all Craigs framing equipment an even two huge gas radiators (the thought of being warm in the winter almost sent us over the edge!!)

We made an offer to the agent on the spot.  Unfortunately, all she could do was pass our offer on to church authorities and wait for a reply.

After what felt like months (but was actually only a couple of days) we had our answer – YES!! 

Now the hard work started… whilst we waited for the paperwork to be sorted out we asked a local builder to come and discuss what needed to be done to bring the church up to scratch again.  After a few cups of tea and a lot of chin rubbing we agreed on the work that needed to be done, agreed on a budget, and agreed on a timescale.  All he needed was the green light when the building was officially mine!

After a couple more weeks it was signed, sealed and delivered – the church was mine!  And so the work began. 

In a little over three weeks the roof had been repaired, the walls and ceiling painted and a new floor laid.  Not long afterwards the alarm system was installed, and then it was time to move in.

In hindsight, that was the easy bit!  It took another eight weeks to move all the paintings, paint, furniture, framing equipment and everything else in, but once it was…WOW!  These photos are just a taster of how it looks, so why not pay us a visit sometime?