What the Smartsville Church needs

Kit Burton said many of the contractors who have come to the Smartsville Church to offer an estimate help the Smartsville Church Restoration Fund get a clearer picture of what’s needed to finish the project.

“It’s a major undertaking but we have the subfloor done thanks to some people from E Clampus Vitus,” he said. “We got estimates for painting the doors and had a nice meeting with Yuba County officials and they’re working with us on things like off street parking, restrooms and elements of the restoration that will need separate building permits.”

He said they got an estimate for a hardwood floor and will be looking into electrical and lighting estimates that will be as true as possible to the authentic look and feel of the original church.

“We need to make it look original but need lighting that’s suitable for meetings where people can write and read so we may need to get a lighting architect,” he said. “Ultimately, it could be a place where any kind of a public meeting could be held or it could be used for entrainment of a certain nature.”

Burton said they’re looking into restoring the windows as well as adding insulation to the walls to help with heating and cooling.

“We got a quote from somebody local about installing heating and air conditioning in the church,” he said. “We will not have any plumbing because it didn’t have any originally.”

He said one option is for an exterior bathroom that would be a vault type structure which could be routinely emptied.

“The Nevada Irrigation District ditch is close to the back of the building and there’s some seepage,” he said. “No damage has occurred to the building and it may have been seeping for more than 100 years. There’s some deterioration to the wood foundation near the back of the church, which was an unexpected discovery, so we will have to address that too.”

Burton said he got an estimate from a Romanian man from Sacramento who has worked on old church in the past to repair and restore the chancel arch over the church’s altar.

“Its a very attractive backdrop and was made with lathe and plaster and he’s going to repair the lath and plaster that’s broken,” he said. “It’s challenging because it’s a very curved configuration but will be painted light blue — like it is now.”

One of the final touches planned is to reinstall the first three rows of the original pews.

“As you approach the back of the building, there will be three rows of pews in the original position and all the interiors decorations,” he said. “A visitor would come in walk in and it would look very much like it would originally.”