Conversion

Chapel

This case study is from SelfBuild & Design December 2021 | Buy this issue | Subscribe

A Hidden Delight: First-time buyers Alice Deuchar and Daniel Schamroth have converted a 19th-century congregational chapel on a shoestring budget using reclaimed and upcycled finds.

Story: Debbie Jeffery. Pictures: Alice Deuchar

In Brief

Hidden away in the ancient Devon village of Zeal Monachorum, a disused chapel has been converted to create a stunning three-bedroom sanctuary filled with quirky finds and upcycled items.

Rebuilding the single storey rear extension half its original size has provided an outdoor courtyard area.

Alice Deuchar, a photographer, and her musician husband, Daniel Schamroth (Shammy), were despairing of ever being able to buy their own home when the chapel came onto the market, offering them an exciting opportunity to create a bespoke property.

“We’d been renting for about 10 years in various places in Exeter but were desperately trying to get onto the property ladder. As we’re both self-employed and only had a small £10,000 deposit, nobody would give us a mortgage – even on a one-bedroom flat,” explains Alice.

“It was beginning to get really upsetting and then we saw the chapel advertised online. At £65,000 it was still over our budget, but we went to look anyway and instantly fell in love when we opened the door.”

Alice and Daniel fell instantly in love with the old chapel once they had seen inside.

Impressed by the main space, with its imposing arched windows and high ceiling, Alice and Daniel made a proposal to the chapel’s owner. After arranging a development loan with a local finance company and conducting various surveys, the couple suggested that they would buy the building without planning permission for £40,000.

“Somebody had made a pre-app (see below) previously and been told they would not get residential planning, which put off other buyers, but we were prepared to take the risk,” continues Alice. “We said we could either offer the asking price, conditional on getting planning, or pay the lower amount immediately, which was accepted.”

Had planning consent not been granted for a change of use, Alice and Daniel felt that the chapel would make an amazing studio for their businesses, which would be acceptable under the non-residential class D1, according to the The Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987.

“My feeling all along was that you can’t usually buy bricks and mortar for such a low price, and it had to be worth something, even if we just sat on it,” says Alice. “When you have nothing, you’re prepared to take a chance. Also, my uncle is a surveyor, my cousin’s a planning consultant and one of my best friends is a solicitor, so we had an incredible team backing us.”

Together the group worked for months to produce a watertight planning application for a change of use to residential, commissioning parking and bat surveys, with Alice’s cousin Toby co-ordinating the process. Alice drew up the layout using online 3D software, which she taught herself to use, before her cousin converted this into drawings suitable for planning.

The original chapel contains an open-plan kitchen/dining/living space, with a new bedroom mezzanine added above the entrance. A bathroom, cloakroom and two bedrooms have been created at the rear.

The original chapel has been retained as a soaring open-plan living/dining/ kitchen space, with a refurbished wooden floor and a wood-burning stove.”

“I had a really strong vision as soon as we walked inside the chapel for the first time and as there was a long gap between viewing and buying it, there was plenty of time to dream and obsess,” Alice explains. “We wanted to keep the double-height space as intact as possible and played about with the idea of adding a mezzanine bedroom level to one end. We would take picnics and lie on the floor with the spiders, looking up at the ceiling, while we discussed what best to do.”

To the rear of the chapel stood a rabbit warren of rooms, including a run-down outside toilet and the old kitchen with a corrugated iron roof.

Unable to alter the existing footprint of the building, Alice and Daniel proposed creating a ground-floor bedroom and bathroom in this area, demolishing and rebuilding the derelict single-storey meeting room as a glazed studio/sunroom/bedroom.

Reducing the indoor space by half created an outdoor courtyard area, onto which glazed bifold doors could open. “That was a bit of a genius idea from my father-in-law, as it was previously a huge room,” says Alice.

The couple moved out of their rented property and lived in various places to save as much money for the conversion as possible. “Shammy was taking our London taxi photobooth business to Christmas markets and collecting pound coins in the snow – it was like something out of a Dickens’ novel,” laughs Alice. Their efforts resulted in savings of £14,000, but the couple had already borrowed £30,000 to buy the chapel, on which they were paying interest.

Once planning permission had been granted, they went back to the finance company, armed with a budget and plans, and borrowed a further £65,000 for the conversion – aiming to complete as much of the work as they could themselves.

A local building firm was employed to undertake the major structural work and Alice and Shammy stripped out the pews, before introducing steelwork to support a new bedroom mezzanine level above the entrance.

The main chapel was in relatively good condition and the external stonework only needed a little repointing, with Daniel refurbishing existing windows.

Ivy was climbing through cracks in the meeting room extension, and the roof was beginning to collapse. Underpinning was required to one wall, and a glulam beam was used to bridge the old and new structures, which had begun to part company. Double glazing was also installed in the new-build elements.

“We pulled the floor up in the chapel to insulate underneath, and the builder saw there was some rot, which meant replacing floor joists,” says Alice. “I remember my heart racing when he called me, as I thought this was going to blow our budget, but fortunately it only cost £150.”

Alice was on site almost daily and assumed the role of project manager. She undertook all the ordering, and the builder allowed her to pay for materials direct to save money. Deliveries were difficult, due to the chapel’s pedestrian-only access and tucked-away location behind a row of thatched cottages, and the alleyway needed to be dug up to accommodate new drainage.

“At the start, we were just doing a lot of clearing up and getting rid of rubbish, but once the plumbing was installed and the space began to take shape, we did more and more of the labour ourselves,” explains Alice.

Two second-hand fanlights found by Alice were welded together by a friend, Jordan, to create the mezzanine bedroom window, overlooking the main double-height space. This was inset into a larger square opening, enabling furniture to be lifted in as it could not be brought up the spiral stairs. The reclaimed spiral staircase came from the experimental psychology department at Oxford University and was found on eBay, bought for £500  and delivered by courier. It is installed on a round platform that makes it the correct height.