Renovated Church Home in Kyloe, Northumberland
A nondescript exterior and a yard dominated by headstones give no indication of the residential nature of this historic church in Kyloe, Northumberland. A couple decided to purchase and readapt the structure, investing nearly three times the purchase price into renovations over the course of several years. The exterior remains mostly untouched, save for skylights running the length of the roof. Inside, the owners took a similar approach. Restoration is more prevalent than renovation, with original stained glass windows throughout, and repurposed church fixtures abounding. Much of the original seating in the church was refinished and placed throughout the home, and unused wood and building materials were fashioned into a dramatic staircase leading from the main living space to an upper level library. The choice to live in a church is an unorthodox one, but this home’s owners managed to salvage a structure that might have otherwise been doomed to deterioration.
See more images after the jump.
Source: Desire to Inspire
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[...] Renovated Church Home in Kyloe, Northumberland Renovated Church Home in Kyloe, Northumberland [...]
Renovated Church Home in Kyloe, Northumberland « The Intelligencer added these pithy words on Jun 30 09 at 4:41 amKui peaksid kirikut hakkama sisustama, siis siit saab ideid…
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digg.ee added these pithy words on Jul 01 09 at 3:31 am[...] Renovated Church Home in Kyloe, Northumberland | SwipeLife. [...]
Pixel Faery » Blog Archive » Renovated Church Home in Kyloe, Northumberland added these pithy words on Jul 01 09 at 12:06 pm[...] o da súa cidade natal, o cal non deixa de probar iso de coñecémonos todos, neste caso Bristol; e a igrexa remodelada conlevou uns gastos do triplo da adquisición, o cal se escapa bastante das capacidades [...]
Estercolaria » Arquivo do blogue » Obviedades aínda non normalizadas added these pithy words on Jul 04 09 at 10:03 pm[...] (from the House Beautiful magazine): Link (if you don’t like clicking through the photos, SwipeLife has kindly um, "borrowed" all the [...]
Converting a Church (Yes, With Its Own Cemetery) Into a Home – Neatorma added these pithy words on Aug 10 09 at 10:54 amlocal fans suppliers…
Works- ……
local fans suppliers added these pithy words on Jan 09 10 at 12:13 pm
Alex added these pithy words on 
yeah, that is sort of creepy. pretty but creepy.
priscilla added these pithy words on
Jun 26 09 at
6:17 pm
Whoa, I’m not religious at all but that is freakin awesome. I would live there for sure. Wonder if I can find a 400 year old church to move in to in Phoenix, AZ? Oh, thats right, nothing here is 400 years old, except the dirt.
lucas added these pithy words on
Jun 27 09 at
12:04 am
I’m pretty freaked out by the fact that there is a cemetery right outside. Also, it would feel wrong to live in a church. omg… and the cemetery.
Sam D. added these pithy words on
Jun 27 09 at
2:35 am
pearljamcrazy added these pithy words on That is beautiful. i want some stained glass in my casa
spencer added these pithy words on
Jun 28 09 at
6:07 pm
wow… that is insanely creepy. and that cemetary outside. does not get any creepier. i would be so scared to even go there.
Milk added these pithy words on
Jun 29 09 at
8:54 pm
When the real church (Gods People) literally collapse from within under the strain of Sin, what you see above happens every time…
Houses of worship should remain ..Houses of Worship…whats worshipped here is .??….May God continually grow the kingdom with new saints and new churches
KSanders added these pithy words on
Jun 30 09 at
2:01 am
Gods people shouldn’t require brick and mortar to do their thing. Its nice to see someone taking care of a building that Gods People chose to let go. Seems odd the cemetery wasn’t relocated.
Skim Milk added these pithy words on
Jun 30 09 at
2:06 am
Why would you have a bed beyond your dining table?
Rob Hill added these pithy words on
Jun 30 09 at
4:57 am
today is the first time I can see pictures of the dream of my life… don’t know if I must cry because of jealousy or continue to watch these pictures again and again… absolutely wonderful. how lucky are the owners…
un demi added these pithy words on
Jun 30 09 at
5:33 am
I love it! The bed in the holy-of-holies – awesome
The place looks stunning.
Jonathan Wilson added these pithy words on
Jun 30 09 at
5:48 am
Great! take a place..contain its soul and use it for something else
Farbecht added these pithy words on
Jun 30 09 at
7:32 am
Brittney added these pithy words on This is beautiful, and the fact that the outer facets have remained intact makes the dynamic must more satisfying!
Ryan Riegner added these pithy words on
Jun 30 09 at
12:23 pm
Hopefully, they do all sort of debaucherous type stuff, there.
Bedlam, ftw!
Meow added these pithy words on
Jun 30 09 at
1:41 pm
infidel added these pithy words on Wow! This is amazing! Would love to live here!
Crystal added these pithy words on
Jun 30 09 at
3:23 pm
This is gorgeous! What lovely use of open space and natural light.
Allison added these pithy words on
Jun 30 09 at
3:26 pm
Beautiful to look at. Seems strange to look through the living room, and dining room to a bedroom.I didn’t notice much in the way of storage for clothing, towels, linen, etc.
Martin Hall added these pithy words on
Jun 30 09 at
6:01 pm
not a huge fan of vintage but there is definitely space for that.
@Agent_Luke added these pithy words on
Jun 30 09 at
11:25 pm
What a wonderful place to live, but don’t talk to loud.
bob9123@ added these pithy words on
Jul 01 09 at
12:31 am
There are a lot of these empty churches here that are sold off cheap,usually the headstones are removed before hand though!!
zinc added these pithy words on
Jul 01 09 at
2:33 am
I have no problem with resuing the church, but this decoration is bad taste and creepy. Straight coming from Architectural Digest.
andy added these pithy words on
Jul 01 09 at
6:14 am
resuing = mis-spell. it should’ve been re-using.
Again, that’s only my personal opinion. I think the deco could be more modern within a gothic space.
andy added these pithy words on
Jul 01 09 at
6:17 am
I have mixed feelings about this place…I admire the way they used the space and renovated the whole “holy place” applying some nice ideas, but at the same time, whenever I look at some of the holy symbols, especially the windows and the stone floors, I just can’t help it…it is creepy indeed..especially the last picture- “surprise, there is a cute tiny cemetery in front”…
svet added these pithy words on
Jul 01 09 at
9:26 am
I saw this church on a HGTV show and I thought it was awesome! They had the church “decommissioned” before they moved in. There is an empty Scientology church near me that would be awesome as a home! I wish I had the money to buy it!
dionna added these pithy words on
Jul 01 09 at
9:59 am
This is how renovation should be done — take the original spirit of a place and add to it, not destroy it. This is gorgeous.
Grey added these pithy words on
Jul 01 09 at
11:25 am
I agree…while I have a made crush on the space, I think the decor and styling could use more vintage-modern pieces and I could totally see some Gothic Grunge case pieces + Vanity Fair Vintage Decor floating around the space… ~s
Urban Lifestyle Decor added these pithy words on
Jul 01 09 at
4:08 pm
To the moron lucas who wrote on Jun 27 09:
“Whoa, I’m not religious at all but that is freakin awesome. I would live there for sure. Wonder if I can find a 400 year old church to move in to in Phoenix, AZ? Oh, thats right, nothing here is 400 years old, except the dirt.”
Really? you’ve just excluded thousands of years of human presence and artifacts in the area now called Arizona.
Maylo added these pithy words on
Jul 01 09 at
6:48 pm
That’s so cool. And I like the cemetery outside. Somehow I think it would be less creepy living in it than outside of it. Like I’m the king of the undead or something. Goth, I know.
PS needs a big cast iron stove that weighs like 4 tons. That shiny thing looks like it would break if I kicked it, and I’m not that strong.
bill added these pithy words on
Jul 01 09 at
10:30 pm
Vincent added these pithy words on 
Judy added these pithy words on 
Felson Sajonas added these pithy words on I love this. I would live there just to preserve the building. I used to have a graveyard in my back yard it’s not that bad( they are all dead,so they are not real noisy ). I would love to buy an old church and fix it up! If it’s abandon already I am sure God would understand.
Robinjones13 added these pithy words on
Jul 02 09 at
10:17 pm
Whoa, worse than ceiling cat … baby Jesus is watching you …
Bill Drissel added these pithy words on
Jul 02 09 at
10:58 pm
To everyone who is making comments regarding the bedroom being beyond the dining area, look again and note the large velvet drapes that are drawn. Obviously, they can close the curtains if they have company or want privacy or whatever. Also, to anyone who is unfamiliar, when a church is converted into a residential or commercial property, there is a ceremony performed to remove the “holy sanctioning” that the church was originally christened with…so it’s not exactly disrespectful or anything to live there. Though it -is- odd that they left the headstones in the cemetery.
Mary added these pithy words on
Jul 03 09 at
10:18 am
Fabulous, I love the stained glass windows!
Leeann
Leeann added these pithy words on
Jul 03 09 at
10:19 am
David added these pithy words on I think I’d find that a tad too noisy, any kind of noise would echo around the interior. You couldn’t really bring up kids there, the noise would just give you a headache. What about in the depth og winter? Northumberland can be very, very cold in winter and a big open place like that would be hard to keep warm.
Nice exercise in interior design, but probably more for show that real day to day living.
Fuzzypig added these pithy words on
Jul 03 09 at
2:33 pm
Given this is in Northumberland, that means the church is almost certainly Church of England… which in turns means there’s probably a vicarage on site, and families have been living there next to the “creepy” cemetery for hundreds of years. (I’ve seen just such a vicarage next to just such a parish church with a cemetery in Haworth, in Yorkshire.)
As to the use of “holy symbols” — hey, it’s not much different than doing a place in Greek or Roman motif. Sooner or later they’ll all be seen as “those weird things our ancestors had superstitions about — can you imagine?!”
Overall, I’d say this is fairly well done.
Hal added these pithy words on
Jul 03 09 at
5:41 pm
DarkSock added these pithy words on Wow, I don’t know if I would sleep in a bedroom with 3 stained glass windows above me but fab kitchen and bathroom with the stained glass windows. Love it.
Lorna added these pithy words on
Jul 05 09 at
1:20 pm
Stunning! Well done for saving a fine building while creating a remarkable living space. I drove past a derelict church in Yorkshire at the weekend and it was a sorry sight.
Duey added these pithy words on
Jul 06 09 at
5:21 am
Gorgeous! I love homes like this that utilize old pieces of history and architecture.
Lindsay added these pithy words on
Jul 08 09 at
12:10 pm
I think it’s odd that Mary suggested it’s unusual they left the headstones there.
Regardless of how old they are, wouldn’t it be horrid if you went somewhere to find your ancestors grave and you could no longer find it? The headstones are an honor to the person buried beneath them, and I wouldn’t want anyone to remove my relatives’ gravestones — whether I knew them or not.
Lindsay added these pithy words on
Jul 08 09 at
12:13 pm
This is beautiful. It belongs in the dream home category.
Amy added these pithy words on
Jul 08 09 at
5:15 pm
It’s very pretty, but I’m such a secular person, I would have replaced the stained glass with glass images of nature, or abstract glass work. Stunning!
Kate added these pithy words on
Jul 09 09 at
1:03 am
I’d feel really weird having sex in a place like that. God knows I’d have to keep it to the missionary position to say the least.
A. Soubriquet added these pithy words on
Jul 10 09 at
10:14 pm
The master bedroom is in the altar?!? Hmmm, let’s better have sex in the kitchen.
Hector added these pithy words on
Jul 14 09 at
1:43 am
I think they did an excellent job revamping the whole place. I don’t see why people are freaking out about the cemetery. You bury your animals in the back yard and don’t go nuts about it. Having the bed where the pulpit would stand is pretty cool and 2nd time around i saw the gorgeous curtains. I’d have no problem being intimate there. God made sex after all.
Zee added these pithy words on
Jul 25 09 at
12:43 am
This is truly vile. I would run screaming from the place.
Minnie Mouse added these pithy words on
Aug 28 09 at
2:54 pm
Fantastic! But how do they heat the place in winter?
Gerry Otley added these pithy words on
Aug 30 09 at
8:59 am
This is God’s home, let us not forget that. Blasphemy of this kind is frightning, I have pity on the souls of those who have tried to turn it into a worldly dwelling. It is right to make the sign of the cross when passing any Church, even those of which have been vandalised.
Ruth added these pithy words on
Sep 02 09 at
7:41 am
Wait…back up a few comments…
“DarkSock” Peed in a HORSE?
Discuss…
Joseph Hardy added these pithy words on
Sep 18 09 at
12:00 am
And why this fretting about sex in a church? Presumably, as a
married couple, there will be NO MORE sex. Medical fact, people.
Joseph Hardy added these pithy words on
Sep 18 09 at
12:04 am
Gives “The marriage bed is holy” a whole new light, doesn’t it?
Robert Easter added these pithy words on
Oct 18 09 at
12:43 am
ash added these pithy words on It’s a building, a beautiful one. Why not use it and keep it alive? Obviously it was up for sale at some point because it was no longer needed as a place of worship. I think it’s an outstanding place to live. The only thing that would get me is the graveyard, but that’s only because I watch a LOT of scary movies.
Great Job!
Jill a la Lune added these pithy words on
Nov 12 09 at
12:50 am
No, not a medical fact Joseph Hardy. I wish I could bring it up right now, but just yesterday a new study was posted on the internet about frequency of sex and it showed that married people have more sex than unmarried people -and way more sex than single people. If you’re married and not having sex, do something about it. Also, I’ve read that religious married couples are also more satisfied sexually than non-religious people – the stereotypes are wrong!
Julia added these pithy words on
Nov 17 09 at
4:57 am
.... added these pithy words on Very sad. It says something about England that it is again giving up its most prized of possessions for a simple house. I also can’t help but think the bedroom was a statement. There were obviously other places to put it, but the new owner wanted to say something and they did. What results is a message of incredible selfishness.
Nick added these pithy words on
Nov 17 09 at
8:54 pm
any room with high ceiling looks cool.
the fact that it’s a church makes it better.
nice home.
robb added these pithy words on
Nov 18 09 at
10:24 am
You people fail to realize this is not a church. It may at one point have been a church, but a church itself is only a shelter for which people may discuss the word of God. It stopped being a church the day sermons stopped being read and exchanged. The same can be said of any building; if a university were to stop being used as a post secondary educational institution, would it still be considered a university? Of course not, for it is only a building, what really matters for it to be considered this way is what happens on the inside. A reverend preaching on the street speaks the word of God, and therefore his street corner may be considered a ‘church’. This building is no more a church than any other house, with the exception that it may look like one.
It’s cool though
tbone added these pithy words on
Dec 01 09 at
12:21 pm
I think this is a brilliant use of a piece of history with a modern architectural touch. The exterior of the building and surroundings have been preserved and the interior has been designed and furnished in an appealing manner. Too many countries and people would quickly destroy old buildings to make way for new structures, but I compliment the owners and the village authorites for approving and allowing this new home to be created and lived in.
John (Brisbane, Australia) added these pithy words on
Feb 06 10 at
9:45 pm
