Wednesday, April 17, 2013

In My Father's House


We had the opportunity to purchase the house in which my father grew up. It is located two blocks from downtown Provo, Utah. Barbie and I fell in love with the house when we first saw it. It is a Craftsman Bungalow style built in 1927. But we also felt its history. My dad moved here when he was nine and lived there until he married my mom and moved to California. There is so much of the history of my ancestors that happened in this house. My first recorded memory (one attached to a fixed date) happened when we travelled to Utah for the funeral of my Grandmother in April of 1962. I was in the kitchen as I watched boiled oatmeal escape the saucepan and pour over the rim onto the stove. This frightened me.

Barbie and I traveled to Provo last week to see the basement that we had remodeled so that Caitlin and Ben could live downstairs while Samuel and Michelle reside in the main house. This was a long long-distant process and had its share of both minor bumps and major issues. We had excellent help through our friend and interior designer, Wendy Ormsby, and our contractor, Jeremy Brown of AllElectric Construction. We did our best to maintain a virtual presence through smart phones as we texted, sent photos and face-timed to oversee and hopefully not overlook the many details involved The result created one of the nicest basement apartments that I have seen in Provo. (A university town with its share of basements dungeons. I lived in one in 1980.)

I decided to include some before and after photos.

(Click to enlarge)

Bathroom

Before, Note the painted ducts
After

Two areas of the old basement not seen here in photos are the cinderblock coal room which was behind the water heater and originally stored coal for the first furnace in the house. This was removed and made room for the bathroom above. The old coal shoot was converted into the bathroom window. Additionally, there was a root cellar that ran the width of the back of the house behind the basement kitchen. This was excavated and finished to become the pantry off the kitchen, the laundry room and a back exit to the internal staircase to the main house. This staircase was required by Provo City in order to get a building permit and caused a large delay and a large cash infusion.



 Front Room

Before

After



View from door
                                                                       
Before
After

Bedroom

Before


After


Kitchen 
Before


After, with view into pantry

We decided to create the basement that we would like to live in if we were young married BYU students.
I'm ready to go back to school.

Kevin


3 comments:

love from Aunt Renie said...

Wow! Well done! I love to see the before and after photos. What a blessing for your kids to live there!

Emma and Dan said...

Count me in! I'd go back to school just to live there. :) It looks amazing and it's all very practical. I love the additional natural light from more/bigger windows.

Patty Ford said...

Kevin, thanks for sharing. I'm sure Grandpa and Grandma Anderson would be pleased! It's great to have you own their home. It keeps us connected to them.