Kevin Oshel, with Dick Hamel Masonry and Construction, Lawrence, works on a stone wall at Trinity Episcopal Church, 1011 Vt. The church is going through a multimillion dollar renovation ahead of its sesquicentennial celebration.

The digs at Trinity Episcopal Church are a little more comfortable now.

The church, 1011 Vt., recently completed a $1.4 million renovation project over the course of two years.

“We’re building this to be more attractive to people,” said Tod Sutton, a civil engineer and church member who helped with the renovations.

The upgrades started two years ago with replacement of the heating and cooling system in the oldest part of the church, which dates to 1872.

The more recent renovations involved creating classroom space in the basement of the Parish Hall and a music room in the upper level of the hall. The Parish Hall itself is getting a new nursery and library.

Sutton said the basement, in particular, wasn’t used much by the church before the renovations.

“The lower level area was lots of small rooms with one long, narrow hallway,” he said. “It can best be described as dingy. It was space that was not being used and not being used comfortably by many people.”

The church had considered adding onto its main Parish Hall room.

“I don’t think we were at the growing pains stage yet,” Sutton said, “but the Parish Hall has always been too small, and probably frankly is too small.”

But after reviewing the issue further, Sutton said members decided they would be better-served in updating the existing space.

The Trinity Episcopal renovations are just one of several building projects going on at Lawrence churches. Here are some of the others:

¢ Lawrence Free Methodist Church – Construction is scheduled to be complete in May on a 27,000-square-foot building that will be dedicated to children and youth education.

Ground was broken on the center in September. The church is at 3001 Lawrence Ave.

“It was constructed with a particular ministry design in mind,” said the Rev. Bill Bump, the church’s pastor. “It doesn’t have a lot of small rooms. It has two larger rooms with a stage, lights and sound. The kids have their own music and drama program.”

He said the building was constructed with the future in mind.

“It’ll give us room to grow and everything,” he said.

Though construction should be done in May, the grand opening will probably be delayed until the fall.

“It will take time to get it all furnished and decorated when construction is done,” Bump said. “We hope to go in and make it kid-friendly, with cool paintings. The basement will have a game room with pool tables, ping-pong tables and computer games. It will take a few months to get it ready for the kids.”

¢ Plymouth Congregational Church – The front of Plymouth Congregational, 925 Vt., was starting to look like it did for decades after repairs from the March 2006 microburst.

Then, disaster struck again.

Crews were working to strengthen a spire at the church in early April when it cracked and had to be demolished. Two of the spires had been damaged in the microburst windstorm, and the church wanted to strengthen the others to make sure it didn’t happen again.

Now, crews will work to reconstruct the tower.

In addition, the church recently received a new roof and new paint in the sanctuary because of storm-related damage.