Heather and George Bassett never do anything halfway.

Known as Team Bassett, the couple have been successfully flipping houses for the past six years. But the one they just put on the market for $1.2 million on Mission Street in the Hanover section of Sprague is the biggest project yet for their company, Team Bassett Realty.

Here, they have converted the former St. Joseph’s Mission Church into a stunning, open-floor-plan home with a massive kitchen and a dining area fit for a king. The four-bedroom, 4,100-square-foot home features a game room in the former choir loft, a 750-square-foot deck to the side of the house and, befitting its former use, ceilings up to 30 feet high.

“We do it like we’re going to live here,” Heather said of their flipping business. “We listen to the house. We listen to what it wants.”

Heather generally works on the home’s interior, including the staging of properties, while George does much of the contracting work. The couple said they spent well over $700,000 bringing the old church back to life.

“When we bought it, we didn’t realize how big of a project it was going to be,” Heather smiled.

The church dates back to the 1920s, Heather said, and it was believed to have been built for employees at a mill who lived and worked nearby. In the 1960s, according to an online history site, the mill shut down and the church lost most of its membership. One of the members with the last name of Armstrong bought the building and used it for a time as his place of business, Hanover Cabinets.

“He destroyed it as far as the church goes,” Heather said, and it became a work site with drop ceilings and a loading dock.

Subsequent owners never did many improvements, either, leaving the interior in a shambles. The home hadn’t been blessed with heat or running water for some time, and plaster on the ceiling was constantly falling down.

But you wouldn’t know it today. The house now is outfitted with all the luxuries, including leathered granite counters in the kitchen, a gas range equipped with a pot filler, two Viking dishwashers, lighted kitchen cabinets and a modern radiant floorboard heating and cooling system fueled by propane.

The west wing of the house that once contained an office now holds all the home’s bedrooms plus a huge walk-in closet and butler’s pantry. But the heart of the home beats inside the massive living room/dining room/kitchen with soaring ceilings and rotating fans where church services were once performed.

“There is not a piece of the church we have not touched,” Heather said in an email. “We like to bring life to something that has been dead for quite some time. We like to bring glory to what the builders at the time wanted it to be.”

The Bassetts spared few expenses, spending $20,000 on the massive 8-foot-tall custom doors that line one side of the home and refinishing the beautiful wooden floors while adding touches such as the reading nooks toward the front of the home.

“It was meant to be a sanctuary; we made a little more house-like,” Heather said of the main living area.

“We gotta do it right” was the mantra, George added.

The Bassetts have approval to build a four-car garage with extra storage space next to the house, but that would be up to the new owner, as would the extra 2,500 feet of space in the basement. The area is a mixed residential and commercial zone, so the Bassetts believe it would be suitable for a business as well.

The Bassetts are no strangers to unusual homes. Not long ago, they lived for a year and a half in a former 220-square-foot school bus with their two children, now 6 and 10. They are currently living in Norwich as their Lisbon home undergoes renovation, and recently bought the former Jewett City Baptist Church that could be their next project.

“We can’t say no to a cool property,” Heather said. “We like a challenge. It makes it worthwhile.”

For the one-acre church property, the challenges were many. They had to settle on a floor plan, figure out how to realign the area where an altar had once stood and deal with all the surprises an older house can offer. Plus, they had to remove 17 dumpster loads of debris over the course of the year-and-a-half project.

But they say the neighbors are happy. Other suggestions for the property, the Bassetts said, included a strip club and a biker bar.

Heather had a fun time staging the property, which could be sold with or without furniture. She thinks it should be purchased by someone who loves to entertain, but it also could be used as a dance studio or cafe.

“My vision is coming together,“ she said. ”I just didn’t realize what it was going to take to get there.“

Lee Howard is The Day’s business editor. To reach him, email l.howard@theday.com.