Now that you’ve seen the outside, want to scope out the inside of the flip?
One of the great things about ranch homes is that they typically lend themselves to today’s modern, open-concept floor plans. Most of the rooms line up with each other, so tweaks like widening doorways and taking down walls are pretty much all you need to bring these vintage homes into this century.
You can see in the floor plans above how we switched up the layout of this house just by changing a few walls. First, we decided that having 3 living areas in this house was a bit redundant, so we turned the formal living room (with the bay window) into the formal dining room, and simply added a wall to turn what was originally the formal dining room into a 4th bedroom/office. Then, we widened the doorway between the dining room and living room, as well as the doorway between the living room and kitchen. Now, the floor plan is open and bright, and makes more sense for the size of the home.
Here’s how the front portion of the house looked when we bought it:
And here’s that same view today:
Isn’t it crazy how you can add a few 2x4s and drywall and, voila! You have a new room!
(I’m adding a “Read More” link to my posts to help the pages load quicker, due to the number of photographs. So click, there’s more! :))
Here’s the formal dining room again, looking back towards the entryway:
So much better now!
One of the things that went a long way towards making this dining room feel modern instead of dated is the new bay window. Having 3 panes of glass instead of 6 (and without mullions) made a huge difference.
Probably the change that made the biggest impact on the feel of the space was opening up the doorway between the living and dining rooms. The back part of the house was completely cut off from the front of the house, making the home feel compartmentalized and smaller than it really is (it’s over 2,600 square feet). You can see in the photo below how small the doorway was originally (it’s that open area on the left-hand side of the photo):
And here it is all opened up! I love that now you can see the fireplace and the kitchen from the front door.
The living room originally had some weird flooring – I’m not quite sure what it was, maybe cork? – so it got spruced up with hardwoods to match the rest of the house.
Framing is one of my favorite stages of construction because you get to see how all of your ideas are going to pan out!
After drywall…
And the official “after.”
To save you from scrolling forever, here’s a Photoshopped reminder of what the “before” looked like:
(I forgot to take a “before” shot, so I Photoshopped this photo of the framing stage to simulate what the wall between the front and back of the house looked like before we began construction.)
The new framing really changed the view from the front door, but it also changed the whole vibe of the living room. It went from being rather cave-like to being an open and bright space. Here’s how it looked through the different phases of construction:
During the framing stage we also opened up the doorway between the living room and the hallway, and added 2x4s to the “thin wall.” We also removed the paneling and the beams – with all of the spaces being open to each other those two features just didn’t work with the new design.
Drywall makes everything look soooo much better, don’t you think?
And here’s how everything turned out! Taking down walls is always the answer, my friends.
Below you can see the original doorway into the kitchen – the poor kitchen was isolated and sad.
We opened up the wall to the ceiling, instead of just widening the doorway – that maximized the “open-ness” between the living room and kitchen. We also closed up the exterior door that was there since there’s a powder room on the other side of that wall now.
Does everything look how you imagined it would? That’s always the fun part for me, discovering how the image in my head matches up with reality.
If you have questions about anything, just let me know in the Comments! :)
AB.SO.LUTE.LY Stunning!!! (I have never written a word like that before!) This is just amazing! The spaciousness, the brightness. WOW! I love what you did. Isn’t it great there was the window already in the dining room that made placement for the study perfect? Love the light fixture in the dining area. And I would have thought “I have to have beams!” However, it probably does look better without! Who knew ranch living could be so glorious! You have outdone yourself–pat on the back mama! :)
Thank you so much, Kristin!!!! You totally made my day!
Beautiful! I love it all especially the new floor plan!
Wow! So beautiful! It’s classic and modern feeling at the same time! You had such a beautiful vision! I can get over that bay window!! So pretty! That’s going to look so stunning with a dining table! The new owners must be thrilled!
it looks amazing! Even like the all white theme for the walls. It can look cold and unfinished, but not here! I am curious about the floor. What colour did you stain it? We want to refinish our oak hardwoods and are having a hard time picking a stain. Really like how yours turned out!
Hi Julia! The floors are DuraSeal Dark Walnut on red oak. Hope that helps! :)
Fabulous, absolutely FABULOUS! Hard to believe the gorgeous transformation! I like so many things, but the flow is perhaps the most significant. Great job, Liz!
Absolutely gorgeous!!! Can’t wait for more pictures! There are going to be more pictures, right??? LOL
wow, really nice! you guys always do such a good job! do you mind sharing the wood flooring information? it’s so much better than what was originally there.
http://www.623designs.com
Hi Bridget! Would you believe that it’s actually the original flooring, just sanded and restained? (Oh, the power of refinishing!) The only places we added wood were the formal living room and the entryway. The wood is 2 1/4 red oak with DuraSeal stain in Dark Walnut. Hope that helps!
oh I love, love, love the bay window! I have original sash bay windows in both my living room and dining room and I adore the extra little bit of floor space they provide! I’d hate to live in a house without them now to be honest!
And the floors turned out awesome! They’re perfect with the white walls – looks like such a nice, modern home now. I’m jealous!
Melissa´s last blog post post ..The Hampden Experience
Beautiful! What color are the walls in the dining room –
Hi Leslie! The whole interior of the house is painted Sherwin Williams Pure White. :)
This is looking absolutely beautiful. Yippee on the progress.
Again, just amazing. So glad I found your blog, I’m absoulutely following, starting now! (-:
Gorgeous. Love the windows.
Bridget´s last blog post post ..Singer Sewing Machines
Just turned a loyal follower.
Nadia´s last blog post post ..Best Selling Portable Air Conditioner 2015
Nice touch to the floor
Lindsay´s last blog post post ..Bestselling Vacuum Cleaners 2015
I really like the way you transformed a custom kitchen design to more spacious one. The wall paint, floors also looks attractive. After watching these pictures, I decided to try similar kind of floors in my home, so please share the flooring information like type and cost of wood, available store etc..