Dresden's Blumberg Family stars in "We Just Bought a Funeral Home". (Photo courtesy of Heather Blumberg Facebook)Dresden's Blumberg Family stars in "We Just Bought a Funeral Home". (Photo courtesy of Heather Blumberg Facebook)
Chatham

Family buys former Dresden funeral home, gets TV show

Dresden is about to be thrust into the national spotlight for what some might consider a spooky reason.

The Blumberg family moved from the Toronto area recently after buying their dream house in Dresden. The home is a former funeral home and Discovery Plus television contacted them to do a home renovation series called "We Bought a Funeral Home."  The show will debut on Saturday.

The six episodes will document the quirky journey of Heather and Arryn Blumberg and their two kids, Rafferty and Noa, who traded in big city life to buy, design, and renovate the 12,000-square-foot, 1800s Victorian funeral home.

Heather told CK Mornings with Chris, Jen, and Matt the family didn't know at first the house was a funeral home, but that didn't deter them from buying it because they feel funeral homes are a place to celebrate life.

"We didn't even know it was a funeral home initially and when we saw the house in the article we just fell in love with the architecture and we made an appointment to come and see it. Then me being me stalked it online and the evening before realized it was a funeral home and then we kinda went 'no.'" said Heather.

Arryn said the family fell in love with the sheer size of the property and realized it met all of their criteria.

"I think it was the scale, it's such a huge building. We've always dreamed of having a large home where we can play baseball and let the dogs run free," said Arryn.

Heather said the family likes odd and weird things and strange shadows, frightening noises, and shocking discoveries don't bother them.

"In the old basement there are a couple of old saws and when you stumble upon those with a torch and no light and it's cold, that was a little disturbing in the old part of the house," Arryn said.

The three-story home has 38 rooms and is filled with meandering maze-like hallways and staircases and should be quite the spooky spectacle for Halloween.

In the first of six episodes, the Blumbergs will run into a string of spooky occurrences while settling into their new funeral home. Heather and Arryn will choose a local contractor to take on the enormous $400,000 renovation project and the entire family will get their hands dirty as demolition begins on the vast property.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3e3BTH7kIY

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