After SEVEN long months of work, we're done! Here is a glimpse of this post-WW2 era home built in 1949 which we just restored as a student rental:
Before you check out the before/after photos below, however, you need to know a few things about this project...
Since moving back to Utah in 2018, we've been contemplating a new project, but it took a year to find just the right one. Our two sons, Andy and Ethan, attended BYU last year and each paid $500+ rent every month. We knew that we wanted to turn that expense into an investment that paid us back, but houses in the Provo area within walking distance of BYU are expensive and not easy to come by. One day late in the winter of 2018, we spotted what we thought could be just the right house. It was beat up pretty bad, but with a little work we knew it had the potential to provide us with 5 bedrooms and 3 baths (at the time it only had 3.5 bedrooms and 1.5 baths). We put in an offer and took possession from previous renters the last day of January 2019.
Our goals with this house were quite a bit different from our last project. With the last one, we wanted to max Shelly's vision and deliver the best house we could imagine from the abandoned shell we purchased. With this Provo house, we wanted to 1) expand it to maximize space to rent 2) finish and furnish it to provide a comfortable and economical solution for renters that would last a decade at least 3) provide a project for our family to come together and work together. And we wanted to complete the project before summer went into full swing so that we could advertise and get renters in time for Fall semester beginning early September. Sounds easy, right?
We started demo before we realized that Provo city wants you to get a building permit before any work is started...ooops! So we immediately were put on hold and couldn't engage on any work for nearly a month before the permit was issued. Much of February was wasted waiting for the permit, and when it finally came around we felt already behind.
Spring came and I have fond memories of spending every Saturday, for sometimes 12-14 hours a day, demoing everything down to the guts of the house. Our last project house was built in the 1990s, and we thought that was old, but this house had lead lined drawers, lead pipes, lath and plaster walls, solid oak wood cabinets, ceramic electrical fuses, man it was built like a tank but just not very functional. We tore down walls and even removed electrical and plumbing (this house was built in the 1940s, with a renovation done in the 1970s, so we had a lot of old, crusty, hybrid systems that all needed to be replaced). Lead paint... Asbestos.... they were no match for the Staples, we donned our alien suits and masks and stripped that house down to the studs. Behind the house, previous owners/renters had dumped all kinds of junk including old tires and wheels and bikes and parts.. we emptied 5-6 full sized dumpsters before we were done.
Eventually, it was time to start putting humpty together again and we started with a full redo of all the electrical and plumbing. Thankfully, we had a licensed expert do this part, which took a few weeks but then we got back to work.
The boys and I framed many of the new walls, but when April rolled around and we hadn't finished, we once again turned to a contractor to finish the framing in the basement for the new laundry and bathroom, as well as the sheet rock. We KNEW this time we would not even try the sheet rock, and the guys we hired blasted it all out in a week.
Then the four of us started the long and exhausting process of screwing down and closing up subfloors, painting every square inch of ceiling and walls, installing brand new hardwood flooring (the previous hardwoods while charming were completely shot!), all new tile in three bathrooms, the utility room and the kitchen, new carpets were installed in all the bedrooms and family area, new millwork and baseboards throughout the house, all new cabinets and vanities in the kitchen and bathrooms, we finished all the electrical and plumbing work - every socket, every switch, every light, every fixture we installed ourselves, we hooked up all new appliances, and then we assembled and furnished the place for 6 university students, including six desks, six dressers, six beds... my oh my!
I'm probably forgetting a few things, but here was the recipe: Shelly gets up and heads to Provo every morning to meet contractors, paint, tile, or trim... usually joined by one of her sisters to help get work done. Bill heads to Adobe and works all day. Andy and Ethan head to school and work. 6pm rolls around and Bill, Andy and Ethan all head to Provo, where we usually are joined by DoorDash delivering our dinner. We work until around 10pm every night, completing what was typically a 14 - 16 hour day. We do this, for 6 months, 6 days a week. On Saturdays we didn't have to go to Adobe, School or Work, but we did head to Provo, almost every Saturday, and worked 12+ hour days.
We've been running so hard there was no time to blog and share out progress... sorry about that. Instead you get this long post with before/after shots, and nothing in between.
What I can say is that getting back into such physical labor was HARD, and we all came home every day feeling itchy, dirty, exhausted, and sore. Somedays we came home frustrated. But many days, we came home feeling fulfilled. We loved seeing things get a little bit better every day. We loved sharing the skills we had learned in Washington with our oldest son Andy, who was in Africa at the time and missed out on the first project. We loved watching Ethan, who had been through such a project before put his skills to work and his even bigger muscles. We couldn't have done it without either boy this time.
Our original goal of having it done by July came and went. We kept working... and finally, the last day of August, we completed the last inspection by the city and are done! We moved Andy in on Saturday and he is ready to start school on Tuesday! We also really happy that our neighbor and good friends from Washington, who Andy grew up with, will be joining him along with his cousin as our first renters! If anyone knows of other male students in the Provo area who are still looking for housing, please send them our way!
Both projects are special to us and we have fond memories from both. This one, since all four of us worked on it together, will stand out as a true family project. It really felt great to have something all four of us adults could shed much blood, sweat and tears over, together. We now share many fond memories of those hours together and hope the house stands as a good investment for many years to come.
Without further ado, here is a before and after view of what we did.
Living Room
When we first walked into this living room, it was pretty rough! It had a wood burning fireplace in the corner with a brick surround. My first thought when seeing this was, “this is not the toy that college age boys should have access to in a rental”. I could see in my mind a pile of embers where the house once stood. Step one: eliminate wood burning fire place. Step two: tear down that wall! This space had some serious single and mingle potential! There was just one wall preventing that from happening. So, we took out the wall separating the “dining” area from the kitchen. Before it was just being used as a sitting area with a book shelf, and the renters had a small table in the kitchen for meals. By taking down the wall we created more usable kitchen counter space, and a wonderful big dining area that brought the two main floor spaces together. It feels like this was how it was always meant to be.
Kitchen
Taking down the wall separating the dining from the kitchen gave us the freedom to really make use of all this wonderful kitchen space! This house had an addition built sometime in the 1970s which added the “galley” area to the kitchen, and also added on the master bedroom. The addition was brilliant in its square footage, not so brilliant in kitchen design. You can see in the “before” photos that the original sink was never relocated, thus creating a weird road block into the galley kitchen. Getting the kitchen sink right made all the difference in the flow of the space. We were also able to use the former “kitchen table” area under the big south window to add another huge bank of cabinets and countertops! With a bunch of students sharing a kitchen, having that extra storage in the kitchen was a must!
Master Bedroom and Bathroom
Like I said before, this entire master bed and bath is s 1970s addition to the home, and it really makes the home more 2019 friendly. The bedroom just needed some new paint and carpet.....the bathroom was a different story altogether. It needed some serious reconfiguring. If you look a the before photos you can see two things. First, the bathroom would only hold a maximum of one medium sized person who might be able to twirl around once if he stayed right in front of the toilet and left his hands down by his sides....no twirling with hands outstretched.....injury will occur. Second, there was a very strange and very unplanned hallway that led from the master into the second bedroom in the main original part of the house. We are not sure why. It looked like it was constructed with a sledge hammer and some plywood. Maybe at some point the small bedroom was a nursery? Who knows....all we knew was that we needed more space in the bathroom and less plywood on the floor. Gone. Now we have a human sized bathroom and if you’re lucky, you might be able to fit four adults inside. Please.....no twirling allowed..
Main Bathroom
If there was an award for ugliest room in the house, this room would have won the prize. Just look at the before photos! Green tile...check. Green tile made of plastic...check. Green tile falling off the walls...check. Weird bathroom cabinets that are cut at an angle so the door would open...check. Nasty dirty tub...check. Mirror with space behind it where old Bobby pins kept magically appearing...check. I think the after photos are enough of a story. The only thing I’ll add is that I love the new tile, but it was a LOT of work. Super cute, though!
Two Main Bedrooms
There are two bedrooms on the main floor that are original to the house. One is a very good size, one smaller. We loved them both! They just needed some TLC. The smaller of the two was the one that connected to the master with said plywood hallway. When that was eliminated it retained its original charm. New flooring, lots of paint and a few thousand stickers and glow in the dark stars removed and they were as good as new!
Basement Family Room
The first word that comes to mind when I think of how this room looked was....dungeon. Do the kids need punishment? Send them downstairs! It’s dark, there are nasty stains in the ceiling, there things lurking in the shag carpet, and there are are even scary trap doors and a closet that could make Harry Potter’s feel posh. This room needed LIGHT! This room also needed hazmat suits. I think we might have exposed ourselves to some caustic materials, but that ceiling came down! And after the ceiling came down, canned light went up! Lots of them. I count bear to rip our the solid wood paneling on the walls, so we compromised and painted it a brilliant beautiful white. I left just a few wood touches to make it homey. I love it! This room feels so inviting and comfortable now!
New Laundry and 3rd Bathroom
We needed a downstairs bathroom. Lucky for us, the utility room and storage spaces had just enough room for us to squeeze one in...with a laundry, too! Everything you see beyond the family room door is newly created space including the hallway, the laundry/vanity, and a cute shower and toilet room. We kept the original wood wall that was in the storage room (I hear that it was once used for a coal room!). I love this detail in the finished bath.
New Downstairs Bedrooms
When we bought the house, there was a playroom for the kids in the basement. Basically it was the two original basement bedrooms where someone opened up a hole in the wall and made it into one room. Useful for kids, but not practical for a rental. We closed up the opening again, creating two usable bedrooms. One obstacle we knew we had to tackle, as renters, was egress space. The two bedroom windows were original to the house and microscopic. A small child might have been able to be greased down and shoved out a window, but that’s about covers it. We needed to open them up, and Provo city had some very exacting instructions about how to do that. This was quite the adventure. It I involved two dudes with a cement cutter, who kept jamming their blade, and then later, two fine sturdy lads (my sons) who ended up pushing and shoving two thousand pounds of cement onto the sub-floor. It was scary. But it’s done! And they not only look great, but add so much light into the rooms.
That's it! Hope you enjoyed the short version of our 2nd project. The exterior of the home is still a work in progress...maybe you'll get a second post in a few months... until next time!