Instead of an alter, there’s a stage and sound equipment. Instead of a congregation, there are paintings. And on Saturday night, instead of praying, there will be partying.

Marianne Maksirisombat moved into the old church at Northwest 61st Street and 22nd Avenue Northwest in November and set about converting it from a old place of worship covered in shag carpeting and sea-foam green paint to an industrial-chic studio, gallery and home.

“I felt like the art scene here was very close-knit and it needed a little shaking up,” Maksirisombat said.

She said the way to do that was with three-dimensional art in an atypical building.

She saw the church for rent while helping a friend look for a place to live and decided to give it a shot, she said.

She was looking for a large space that could properly display some of her bigger works, and the 8,000-square-foot building can do that.

The main room of the church is filled with Maksirisombat’s paintings and sculptures and a stage (“bigger than most of the venues here,” she said). She lives upstairs and the basement holds the bathrooms, kitchen and a of couple friends who are renting rooms.

“There is stuff you don’t expect when moving into a place like this,” she said. “Like no shower or laundry.”

Maksirisombat removed the urinal and stall out of the men’s room and built herself a shower. She redid the women’s restroom into something out of the trendiest nightclub.

In her new art church, she is able to pay one rent for her home, gallery, studio and metal shop all in one building, she said. Before she was paying four separate rents and traveling between spaces.

Maksirisombat, who grew up in Seattle but moved to San Francisco and Hungary, said Ballard has been welcoming of the church’s new tenants and neighbors have approached her saying how excited they are to have an artist in the space.

She is hosting an art showing and birthday party in the church Feb. 21 and said she hopes to continue using the space for art parties in the future.