Late 1800's - This place was just an open plot of land, owned by, what I believe, was a couple of brothers. The state of MN wanted to buy over 200k acres of land across the state of Minnesota, to put in a railway line for the mining that was going up north. The state was willing to pay about 4.5 million dollars for these 200k acres, which now days, is dirt cheap. There was a bunch of legal paperwork involved, to acquire this land along with all of the others. Old English, and legal terms, are not my forte, so I didn't completely understand every detail that was written up.
This battle for the land last quite a long time. At some point, the land was either sold, or taken over by another entity, and in the early 1900's there was still no railway built, and the land was still empty. The county decreed that if this particular parcel of land was not used for educational purposes, then it must be returned to the previous owners or a relative or descendant of said owners.
1919 - The school house was built. Now we have had older people stop by, excited to see who has boughten the old building, and would tell us stories of their parents who had attended this place when it had been a schoolhouse. The teacher would come in every morning, and light the wood stove to heat the building before the students would arrive for their lessons. This was a typical old schoolhouse, where it was just one large room, and all the students, regardless of age, would be taught at the same time by the teacher. In three rooms of our house, there is still the really old wood floors that were there when this place was built. You can tell, as in one place, there is the burn marks from where the teacher would light the fire everyday, and over time, darkened the floor.
This is the flooring in three of the rooms.
(This will be my massage office, hence the massage table leaning up against the wall! Super excited to get back to work doing something I love!)
I believe it was in the 1950's when they decided to turn the school into a church. At this point, they placed some very 'special' looking tile over the majority of the floor, which if you look at where some parts have broken up, the old floor is still underneath. (Unfortunately, we need to cover the tile, and aren't able to pull it up, so we can only keep the wood floors in the three rooms it is currently in.) The tile though, as a pattern to it, which we were told the reason why. In the middle of this one large room, there is an aisle about 3 feet wide, of a lighter colored tile, and then the tile on either side is darker. We were told that that used to be the aisle from the old church, and the darker tile is where they would line up the chairs or pews, and the preacher would stand at the front to preach.
We have also discovered at time has gone one, and we dig more into renovations and repairs, that the original building had wood ceiling and wood walls, that had been covered up with ceiling tile and that fake looking plywood walls.
In the 1980's, the church went before the county board to get approval to add onto the church, and so, the second half of the building was born! They more then doubled the size of the original building, adding on the sanctuary, some class rooms, and offices. In most places in our house, you can tell the old building from the new, and where the transitions happened. When they built the newer section of the building, the old Canadian Railway had closed down, therefore abandoning many of their railway beams. So, the church put them to good use, and half of our support beams, are actually steal railway beams from the old railway.
Josh also discovered last night that when the addition had been built onto the old building, they left some of the original siding from the old schoolhouse on, under the new addition. Which I thought rather beautifully old, and there was something almost something magical about it... like I was holding a deep piece of history or something...
Fast forward to 2010's and the church has grown too big for the building! And in 2015, a small family has decided to take on the impossible, and turn this old schoolhouse, turned church, into a house!
We decided to name our house, for a couple of reasons. One, for us, it's not really a house. Yes, we live here, yes, it's our home, and yes, we love it! But for us, we know that God has had his hand over this place for almost a hundred years, and that He will continue to use it for His good and His glory, and we are just vessels of a greater purpose. We know that this place is His, and as we design, and we renovate, we keep His plan in our mind. We've had some glimpses into His plan for this place, and we're excited, nervous, and scared, but His plan is good!
Secondly, I can't really call it a house. Why? Because, well, it's not! I have come up with all sorts of clever things for this place, mainly calling it a 'church-house...' because, that's what it is! But 'church-house' isn't so practical to say... not to mention slightly cheesy. Plus, my husband was making fun of me every time I said it, hehe!
So Josh and I decided to name it. We couldn't decide on a name for awhile. I wanted to go super old fashion and English type for a name, calling it Plumfield or something like that. My husband had a better idea:
Éveiller House
Leveille, our last name, in french, means Awaken. And the french word for Awaken is Éveiller. We're using this house, this church-house, for God's good and His glory, and we are awakening it's potential, and ours as well. We are awakening dreams of adoption, of potential foster care, of helping others. We are awakening, redeeming, the potential of this place, of our hearts, of our callings, and we're all in!
I love it! I'm awakening to dream with you! Plumfield, lol. My kinda girl.
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