Spring
home
April 2022
A special supplement to The Globe
See story on Revive! Interiors on Page 3.
Growing family sparks need for more living space Nienkerk turns to local contractors with home addition BY JULIE BUNTJER The Globe
WORTHINGTON — With five kids at home in the summer of 2020, just months into the COVID-19 pandemic, a rural Worthington couple decided it was time to transform their nearly century-old, two-bedroom, one-bath home into the space needed for a growing family. “We had talked about it before, but the expense of it….” said Tyler Nienkerk of the home he and Shannon share on the southeast edge of Worthington. “We’d looked at other houses for quite a while and we couldn’t find what we wanted — and we didn’t want to move from here. We have a nice location, we just gotta do what we gotta do to make it liveable for us.” In the home since 2010, Nienkerk wanted to keep the original structure intact because of the renovations they’d already completed.
Those previous renovations included new cabinets and a backsplash, a full-size dishwasher and a built-in microwave in their kitchen. Also, they cut through a section of wall between the kitchen and the living room to create a more open feel, removed a chimney, finished off the existing unfinished basement, installed laminate flooring on the main level and replaced carpet in the upstairs bedrooms.
Adding on at both ends The addition onto their home included a new three-stall garage attached on the east side of the home and angled to the south, and a new master bedroom with bath and walk-in closet, home office and laundry room added on to the west, with a full basement underneath the addition. The result is an L-shaped home and garage that
Special to The Globe
The Nienkerk family includes Tyler (from left), Jackson, 7; Preston, 19; Zoie, 14; Caine, 2; Collin, 5; and Shannon holding baby Jayna. meets form and function for the family. Nienkerk hired Worthington contractor Clair Van Grouw for the project after getting Van Grouw’s input on other projects with the home. “To Clair’s credit, he probably acted half as my psychologist,” Nienkerk said with a grin. “It
started as a whole lot less than what it ended as. It started out small — we just needed more space.” And then, as the work commenced, there were changes and additions made because “we don’t want to do this later,” he added. “Every curveball I threw him, he made it work,”
Nienkerk said of Van Grouw. “There were a lot of curveballs. He did a great job.” The home addition was the first project to get under way, with Henning Construction digging a full basement with walkout access. As the work progressed, a hole was cut into the west side of the
existing home to create the hallway that leads to the three new rooms — an office to the south, a laundry room to the north, and a master bedroom with bath and walkin closet at the west end. When work on the home addition stalled, Van Grouw began building the new threestall garage, which includes ample space for family gatherings, Nienkerk noted. “Our kitchen is always going to be small and our living room is always going to be small,” he said. “If we can keep people in the garage instead of the house, it’s a lot easier. “We can host family and get-togethers and just do it in the garage,” he added. With that in mind, the garage has in-floor heat, and Nienkerk has since added some couches and a flat-screen TV.
NIENKERK: Page 6