Photo Friday: New Beginning

Some people live life boldly. A delightful couple I just met were looking for a change. As they told the story, they had lived in a family home in Bountiful for over 30 years. With their family grown, they were ready for a big change, and a change that would last. They were attracted to the 9^th and 9^th neighborhood, which just last weekend hosted Preservation Utah’s annual home tour. It’s a vibrant urban neighborhood with a rich lifestyle of locally owned shops and restaurants and sidewalks filled with people walking arm-in-arm, exercising dogs, pushing strollers, or just taking in the friendly atmosphere.

Photos by Scot Zimmerman

The couple found a charming 120-year-old brick bungalow across from a school and down a half-block from the commercial area. The goal was to make it a home specific to their lifestyle and designed to carry them through the next 30 years. They called on the architectural skills of Capitol Hill (David Richardson) to design a workable floor-plan and to preserve the historical street presence. Living Home (Chris Towson) built the home. When he began, he found significant structural issues. As a result, much of the home is new, but materials were retained and the craftsmanship replicated to keep the home similar to before. The homeowner summarizes that only two walls are original, and the rest is new. Larkyn Interiors (Larkyn Mungoran) executed the interior design to fill the bright connected spaces with interesting details.

The rear addition, finished with white vertical board and batten, creates a space for the master bedroom and bath with a spacious office on the second floor. A deck fills the area between the addition and original home. For a small urban lot, there is ample outdoor living on the side yard where the driveway once led to the back, on the decks, and the front porch. The large new garage is at the back and accessed by through the alley. 

The front door leads into the open social space of the home with the living area on the right and the kitchen and dining on the sunny south side. The sectional subtly separates the living area and the area carpet offers further definition. Behind the partial wall to the right is a bathroom and beyond the master bedroom and bath. A long-term consideration for the design is future mobility and being able to live on one floor.

The banquette and chair seating allows for seating a group or a cozy place for mornings. A door connects to the patio seating and umbrella table on the side yard. Note how the gray blue of the kitchen backsplash gently defines the kitchen work area. At the far end of the kitchen is a door to the combination pantry/laundry. The stairway leads up to the office and an imaginative attic play area and bunkroom that the homeowner built himself for the grandchildren. The stair risers are painted like the spines of the family’s favorite books, adding color and an interesting topic of conversation, as the titles range from Harry Potter to nuclear physics. 

Here is a detail of the sunny corner dining area.

The wall off the deck tells the story of how the brick wall was demolished, the bricks were retained and color-stripped, and the new brickwork skillfully reproduced the original. The homeowners decided not to paint it so the mastery of the craftsmen can be fully appreciated. The yellow selected for the exterior paint matches a previous yellow of the home. 

It has been a big and welcome change for the couple. They enjoy their city lifestyle, leisurely strolls, and the friendly families in the neighborhood. In turn, their neighbors appreciate the efforts they made to restore the happy yellow house. They hope to make it their home for a long, long time. 

You can explore even more charming Salt Lake bungalows here.