BEFORE THE ARCHITECT – Mrs. AG's House Designs AND HOME BUILDING PLAN DESIGNS

RANCH HOUSE MAKEOVER

· · · · · · ·

This is a case study in house designs and home building plan designs involving the transformation of a ranch from tired-old to lively-new and much more functional.

.  .  .  .  .  .  .

SETTING 

The setting is a brief level relief in a steeply sloping lot starting high up behind in a granite outcropping and ending way down below in a small river.  In other words, a style long and narrow was the only reasonable option in this makeover; it was a ranch and would stay a ranch.  To complete this setting, we note that the property faced open slope to the river below about 100' down and 100 yards away, wooded slope rising on the other side, and a lake far below and about a 1/2-mile away.

We redesigned to the view, mindful of the topographical constraints within we had to operate.

.  .  .  .  .  .  .

PRESENTATION SIDE OF HOUSE - Before

You can see in this first pic view toward the presentation side of the house, front door - sliders - of the Before House (BH).  The siding is vinyl - poorly installed - and the roofline is a pair of intersecting gables. The right-hand gable was part of a two-car garage converted into Foyer and sitting area.  Windows on the left are fixed pictures with the seals broken and lots of scunge between the glazes.  This pic is in color; nevertheless, the utter bleakness of this design in all its aspects make it look virtually monochromatic.

Before House (BH), presentation side.  .

Next, we'll come slightly more to the right in order to get a sense for barren style of the place, now with a face-on view of the side door, overwhelming gable end above and pitiful garage makeover on the right.

BH, presentation side, more direct.  .

Let's take you fully around this end of the BH, showing you the driveway face of the real property.  The exposed brick stack occupies the end of the old garage.  Another single-swing to the right further degenerates a cleanly focused appearance. (You can witness demolition already underway with a vintage wall oven unceremoniously dropped in the drive on the right.)

BH, presentation side, driveway-on.  .

.  .  .  .  .  .  .

PRESENTATION SIDE OF HOUSE - AFTER

Because this property had as its vehicular entry toward a narrow side of the house and there was absolutely no reasonable way to alter that presentation, we opted to broadly define a front door with two beautiful, natural wood three-footers as double doors fronting a stand-out Foyer with large slate steps up to a big, raised landing.  You'll see later on what happened to those shot picture windows.  Here you can see what happened to the sliders - gone as part of the foyer's passage to the house interior and part gone to casement windows on two corners for cross ventilation.  That room off the foyer ultimately served several functions - playroom for children, great catering setup area for entertaining, a small bedroom in a pinch (with its own bath), a semi-private staging area near the bath, and a potential sitting room, lounge, or library among other functional opportunities.

After House (AH), presentation side.  .

Moving farther toward the driveway, see how well the new foyer integrates with the existing house redesigned.

AH, presentation side, more direct.  .  You can see our building materials in the foreground, and note that this pic actually predates the former - no steps or pathways laid herewith.

Backing all the way to streetside, this is what we did overall on the presentation face. 

AH, driveway presentation.  .

PRIVATE SIDE OF HOUSE OVERLOOKING VIEW - BEFORE

We designed the foyer to accomplish three different architectural purposes - bulk up the width of the house in its roadside presentation, provide an obvious focus of attention to an undeniable entryway, give the house a foyer in keeping with its overall size and layout, and, finally, block the private area of the house from roadside observation.  The private side of the house - the side overlooking the grandeur of the area - is just the other side of the foyer.

Let's first look at what was.  The first pic of this section is of the garage-madeover old front door and the main interior room of the house - a formal living room with its scungy fixed pane windows.

BH - Right wing and center facing view.  .

Seen from the other side, we note that the old patio is below the main floor of this single-story house by about 18".  We demolished the patio and scooped out another half-foot to design and build a deck of 2"x4"s laid long-side up because our first 3 tries at putting in other deck forms failed for all the granite which we encountered in driving post holes for deck footings and piers.

BH - Right wing and center facing view, opposite.  .

Finally, in the BH pics on the private side of this house, we show the backside (we never pictured the frontside before) of a porch that ended the ranch on the far side from the driveway.

BH - Porch wing, backside view.  .

PRIVATE SIDE OF HOUSE OVERLOOKING VIEW - AFTER

First off, the new foyer with oversized windows to the views, flanked on the right by that multipurpose room with windows to the view, and our less formal living area walled with sliders to a to-be-built deck with a commanding view - inside and out - of valley and river and lake.  (You can see in the window that we were applying Andersen windows in this project.  We've given up on Andersen since then.  Good product, lousy backup.  Many of the most unpleasant experiences we've had in designing and building involved personal dealings with Andersen's representatives.  We've no all-time favorite; however, for both quality and service, we're getting partial to Marvin.  For price if not world-class quality, we're getting partial to Reliabilt-Atrium.)

AH - Right wing and center facing view. .

Second, that old porch on the far end.  We redesigned it as a master bedroom far, far away from the community end of the house, and a huge master bath (4-person whirlpool, Italian pedestal sinks, mud shower, marble everywhere) and closet area.  See how the shingles tone up the very feel of the house.  (You'll be wondering forever why we didn't build forward of the old porch - our upper level to the septic system was smack in the middle of that grassy area - forbidden territory for construction.

AH - Porch wing (now Masters wing), frontside view.  .

Third, let's look down the entire private side.  The master bedroom is barely taken in on the left, then there are two other bedrooms in the first full section (note the large corner windows) and then our deck rimmed by living area on the left and foyer forward (note the view from the foyer onto the deck and beyond - the visual sensation of entering the house from the foyer doors was amazing for all the windows and depth and height suddenly before you.

AH - Private side, overall.  .

.  .  .  .  .  .  .

As a hallelujah-windup, here's our property in an aerial view.  The house is totally redone in this picture.  See how it plays to views only barely hinted at in this shot (a part of the river is in the lower left). 

 .

POSTSCRIPT

Some of our work on the inside is reflected in our work on the outside, e.g., changing the porch into a master bedroom, resurrecting the garage and its annex into a bed, full bath, and huge family room, opening the old front of the house to our new foyer, etc.  Some of our work inside will have to wait for other days, e.g., dropping most of the wall between garage and house and making a wonderful dining room that opened to the backyard and overlooked the family room, gutting the kitchen and starting again, converting the old master bedroom into a wonderful closet and full bath area, etc.

.  .  .  .  .  .  .

[ Home ] [ Up ] [ Antique Revived ] [ Cape Cod ] [ Colonial Makeover ] [ Contemporary ] [ 1 Demo, Please ] [ Doghouse Ranch ] [ Garrison Facelift ] [ Kitchen Designs ] [ Kitchen Quickie ] [ Porch Designs ] [ Porch Enclosure ] [ Ranch Makeover ] [ River House ]

 About Us ◊ jrp2h2000@yahoo.com ◊ 770-889-6964 ◊ Site Map