Do it yourself home created out of warehouse

Editor's note: Some homes in Old North Knoxville are not in houses. There are several apartment complexes in Old North and, now, there is even a home created out of a warehouse. On a much larger scale, this type of conversion has been going on in downtown Knoxville with developers turning warehouse and other former commercial property into condominiums, apartments, and penthouses. However, the following article is about how one couple, looking for a place to retire, decided to practice do-it-yourself warehouse conversion / restoration, which is how much of the restoration in Old North Knoxville has taken place: one building, one house at a time, usually by the person or people who intend to live in the home they've created. 

Article by Sonny Jones
Pictures by Sonny Jones and David Booker

Why A Warehouse?

		Above, conversion of the warehouse on E. Anderson into a home began in October 2005 with first digging up part of the concrete floor in preparation of putting in plumping. Next came putting up the framing for the different areas of the house, such as the frame at below for the kitchen area. Once framing, wiring, and ductwork were in place, drywall was put up.

After thirty-odd years of living in apartments large and small, and two different houses (one twice), we wanted r—o—o—m. We were both tired of little bathrooms, no real room to work on our hobbies, insufficient storage space for all the “stuff” (junk?) we’d accumulated in thirty-plus years of marriage – some of that time maintaining two households. We lived in concrete apartment buildings in Germany and saw no disadvantage to concrete floors and walls . . . in fact we rather liked the solidity of them. We saw people on Home & Garden TV’s Extreme Homes living in oddball places: garages, grist mills, school houses, county court houses; all converted from their original purposes, and we said, “why not us?”

We knew as retired gubment bureaucrats, we couldn’t afford to continue living in Northern Virginia, and having some knowledge (and accumulating more) of Knoxville, it gave us a destination.

It’s been neither quick nor easy. First we had to find a commercial property to buy, negotiate a price, prepare our townhouse in Fairfax County for sale, arrange financing for both the sale of the townhouse and purchase of the warehouse, pack all our worldly possessions, and coordinate the transport of it all. Then sell the townhouse, move in two directions (one of us to remain behind and finish work before retirement; the other to establish a “forward operating base” in Knoxville), coordinate with a contractor, all the while looking for ways to hold the cost down to a manageable, affordable level.

 

 

		Above, the kitchen area of their 4,000 sq. ft. converted home completed and stocked. Below, photo of Sonny, Colin, and Roberta Jones.

It wasn’t easy. Would I do it all over again? I’m not sure.

We’ve had an enormous amount of help. Initially in Fairfax, being lucky enough to find a really good realtor to sell our house for far more than we’d ever dreamed, but almost simultaneously finding a realtor in Knoxville who found exactly what we told him we wanted. We found bankers who were sympathetic to our cause and enthusiastic about it who put together a financial package that made sale and purchase affordable. Classic examples of “we-couldn’t-have-done-it-without-you.”

Over and over again we’ve met people in Knoxville who define “Southern hospitality;” embodying what I call “customer oriented.” Our real estate broker, our bankers, our contractor, our insurance broker, our lawyer, and so many others made it happen. “An East Tennessee kinda thing?” I think so.

Come see us, OK?

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