You're Moving WHERE?????

So - a little history.  I'm at "that" age.  Widowed for almost 7 years.

 I have a mother(who we call the elf from here on) living here in Eureka Springs who is 91 years old and in the fall of 2014 she decided it was time to move into an assisted care center.  She told me on a Monday morning and by Sunday she was moved in.  It was really past time for her to move, so I made it as fast and painless as I could for her, I on the other hand had plenty to do.

Still in 2014 I was involved with my stepson and helping him through the cancer process - yes - he survived, but it was a 2 1/2 year long battle. 

So in December of 2014 - I had made up my mind - I was moving back to IOWA!  Yes Iowa - I know that when people retire they move to warm places - but my son was in Iowa, so that is where I'm headed to. A good friend Ann told me to move while I could still decided where I wanted to live and where I could make new friends.  So I started looking at the real estate information - Iowa is growing so fast.  But here's the thing.  It's all two story, split level or split foyer homes and they are for the most part cookie cutter types - you know what I mean.  Beautiful - but.....

I'm coming from Eureka Springs and The RoundHouse - can't get much more unique than that so I decided that I needed a reward for just thinking about moving back to Des Moines and that I wanted to create another beautiful place to live the rest of my life.

Oh - the condo life would be great - but I have a dog - Denver - so I needed a nice yard and trees and I said that word - UNIQUE - maybe a one of a kind home!

When Jon and I were first married I dreamed of a barn turned into a home.  The RoundHouse was as close as we came to that.  Now - years past - I needed something on one floor - easy to maintain.  I had no idea what it was going to be - but I had a childhood friend up there and he started driving around to no avail!  I did everything on the internet and was turning up nothing.  Until......

Fall of 2015 I found a church for sale in Waukee - went and saw it - it was perfect - but it was zoned commerical.  Now typically churches are zoned residential.  So I went to talk to the city of Waukee and they said no way would they entertain the idea of changing zoning.  I tried to work with them twice for the next 6 months - but nothing was going to happen - so we were back to the drawing board.

Then in July 2015 while on the internet I was just googling stuff and another church showed up in Cumming, Iowa - I didn't even know where Cumming Iowa was - but it's 4 miles south of West Des Moines - perfect location.  The church had just recently been sold in March of 2015 - but I thought what the heck - call - I did and after several months of evaluation and going before the City of Cumming to get it changed from commercial zoning to residential (which they were more than happy to do) two days before Thanksgiving I bought a church!!! 

Now - believe it or not - it is exactly the same size as the Waukee church - but the location is better and the lot is beautiful!  It's about 37 feet by 67 feet plus the choir loft!  The City of Cumming is only about 350 people - friendly, quaint town, surrounded by million dollar homes and growing maybe too fast!  Look it even has a wheel chair ramp!

 

Now go through the double doors and let's see inside!

Straight ahead is the podium.  If you turn right after going through the doors you will see the stairs for the choir loft.

 One huge open space - yes - filled with pews, altars and lots of misc.  When I first drove into town to see the property - I looked around and saw all the stain glass windows and called my friend and said - why didn't you tell me about the stain glass windows and how beautiful this place is????  He said - I did - I told you it had a nice yard......Ok - so maybe we don't speak the same language.  But stain glass windows throughout and in beautiful shape.  Need to get a close up of them, they are all different colors!

 So these are the stairs that lead to the choir loft.  They are narrow and dangerous - not even close to code - but they can be replaced!

 

So - that was Nov 2015 - the purchase before Thanksgiving.  The day of my purchase I went and visited my friend in the hospital and found out that the the man who was going to be my contractor decided it was too much for him.  So - before even signing the purchase papers - I was a few steps behind.  Then on the Monday after Thanksgiving I was informed that my friend had passed away - I was in shock. But I owned a church!

 

Ryan, my son - thought I was nuts but said he knew I could turn it into something wonderful!  We'll see I can prove him right!

 

The church doesn't have water or septic - so that has be added.  A thousand pews and altars need to be sold - there is plenty to do and.....so it is!

 

I'm creating my next home - for the Rev D (Denver's new name) and me!