Let there be LIGHT

Sarah and Adam Hall have transformed a former church in Australia and filled it with art, antiques and vintage treasures

- ALI HEATH

The double-height open-plan living space has been cleverly zoned to create different areas for relaxing and socialising. Adam made the shelves, which are home to the couple's many collections.

Warm, welcoming and filled with light, the former church in which Sarah and Adam Hall and their two children have made their home has seen many changes over the century-and-a-half since it was built. Designed in 1870 without much in the way of religious adornment, the church was deconsecrated in 1903 and repurposed variously as a prisoner of war information centre, an immigrant shelter, a meeting hall for the Country Women's Association and, more recently, as a venue for parties, circus clubs and yoga classes, before finally falling out of use.

Known affectionately as Blue Doors Church, on account of the vibrant shade that previously adorned its Gothic arch entrance, it is very much a local landmark in Willunga, a picturesque town 40 miles south of Adelaide.

Sarah and Adam had been wanting to move to the area, which is one of South Australia's wine regions, in order to be closer to Sarah's sister and business partner, Emma, and they immediately fell for the allure of the empty church. Having grown up in a convent that his parents had restored, Adam had long harboured the idea of converting a church. While Sarah, with her love of salvage, antiques and upcycled finds, was in her element planning the decorative possibilities presented by the sheer scale of the building.