church sale when the King sold the churches in Norway to pay off debts from the Great Northern War. The church was then owned by a private owner who was responsible for the upkeep of the building. In 1814, this church served as an election church (). Together with more than 300 other parish churches across Norway, it was a polling station for elections to the 1814 Norwegian Constituent Assembly which wrote the Constitution of Norway. This was Norway's first national elections. Each church parish was a constituency that elected people called "electors" who later met together in each county to elect the representatives for the assembly that was to meet in Eidsvoll later that year. By the mid-1800s, the church was in seriously bad shape and a major renovation was planned. In 1848-1851, the church was rebuilt using designs by Johan Henrik Nebelong. This rebuilding was strongly criticized afterwards. This was one of the first major restorations of a medieval building and there was little experience with and understanding of the construction of stave churches among architects in general and from the newly started Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments, which approved the plans. After the rebuilding, the interior appeared in a distinctly empire style, and there were sometimes major construction engineering problems due to moisture and fungal damage. Just over a century later in the 1950s, Nebelong's changes were undone and the church was restored to look more like it originally did. This restoration was led by Gudolf Blakstad and Herman Munthe-Kaas. The changes were quite drastic and they also included a lot of structural repairs including the replacement of many of the old staves. The nave's four corner staves and the half-plank walls are still original, but the foundations, sleepers, and stave beds were all replaced. Large parts of the nave are made of new materials (only two of the intermediate staves and some arch knees are original). Also, the roof structure got its current design during this restoration. The old stave church does not have a built in heating system, and large fluctuations in temperature are not good for the centuries-old timbers. Since the old stave church is still a functioning parish church, it had been used year-round. In 1993, the old barn on the grounds of the vicarage was rebuilt so that it could be used as the church during the winters. The