It seems it only takes time before despised architecture becomes desired architecture. Bungalows are among the most loved house forms for old house fans — and they used to be available too. Not any more, around here!
I’m predicting that ranch houses are the natural next “bungalow phenomenon” in this country. There are more 50 year old ranches in our part of Montgomery County, MD than all other types of houses combined, I’ll bet. And I also bet they’ll still be there in 50 more years – when the megamansions have gone away. As long as people don’t tear down all the ranches to build other things.
We bought a little ranch house in Poolesville — for the wonderful lay of the land, not the house, because I wanted a bungalow at the time. ;-> But now, having read everything by Cliff May I can get my hands on, and the few new books on ranches that have been recently published, I am really getting into the whole ranch idea.
So to the point of my post: I know my husband and I will be expanding the compound around the house. We’ll want to better accomodate his landscaping trucks and equipment. We’ll eventually build a shop, hopefully. There’s the orchard and garden already in development. I want to spread the house out on the land in the classic ranch fashion, adding an office and guest room/studio. And there’s the bathroom inside the house that needs to be updated after 50 years.
I’d really love to see practical case studies and other resources on how to solve common ranch house dilemmas, while staying firmly in the ranch house aesthetic. Like — the livingroom is 9 feet wide and 20 feet long. So is the diningroom/kitchen on the other side of the structural wall. What do you DO about that sort of awkward space arrangement?
But I don’t want to convert my ranch into something it’s not. I want, over time, to be able to let the house reach its architectural potential. Are there architects and builders out there who are focused on ranch remodels that honor the ranch-ness of the house?
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I live in a somewhat ranch style, it is actually a side split, we live in a rural area and pretty much all the homes are either ranch, bungalows or side splits. we have been here for approx 5 years and the previous owners built on to this house, an approx 600 sq foot addition. they built onto the back, where the dining room and kitchen back walls were, leading from the kitchen and dining room is a large family room, another 4 piece bath, wet bar and master bedroom. there is also an entrance from the attactched garage and accross the other side patio doors leading to a large deck, I think that the best part of the addition was that the contractor built the rooms over a full size basement, which gives us another 600 sq feet, because the house is a side split the basement under the kitchen, dining room and living room is a low part, pretty useless except for storage and furnace, but under the kids bedrooms are the on ground play room and laundry room.
I don't know if this is of any help to you, but I think the nicest ranches I've seen have ones that are set up with "wings". Friends of mine just moved into a ranch and the front entrance is in the middle of the house, kitchen off to right, living room off to the left, straight ahead is a closet, behind that is a chimney for a double sided fireplace. Both the living room and kitchen have a fireplace. The living room extends front to back, long and narrow, but not as narrow as yours. I didn't measure, but I would guess at least 12' wide, if not 15'. Then, on the left of the living room is the master bedroom 'wing', there's a little sitting room, then a bathroom and the master bedroom. The kitchen does not go front to back, but it extends to the right of the main entrance, somewhat long and narrow. The dining room is, if you're at the front entrance, behind the chimney. So, one side of the dining room opens into the living room, the other end goes behind the kitchen, though it does not extend as far as the kitchen does. The guest bedroom "wing", there are actually 2 bedrooms, a full bath and a 1/2 bath, is beyond the kitchen and dining room. There is also an addition, added on to the kitchen, making the house an L shape, a sunroom and then a garage. It's a really nice feel, the rooms sort of meandered around.
Thanks for the message. This is just the sort of information on ranch remodeling I'm interested in hearing about. The "meandering" approach intuitively seems like a good one. But does it really work? In our house, the bedroom wing might wind up being pretty far away from the kitchen and guest/office wing. Would that be annoying or wonderful? It sounds like meandering does work, in the case you describe.
What I'd really like is a very large book of case studies of real-life ranch solutions. Taunton, any plans for something like that?
Actually, Taunton has a series of books called "Updating Classic America" (go to http://www.taunton.com/store/pages/spbh003.asp) The latest in the series is Ranches by M. Caren Connolly and Louis Wasserman.
Another book that I like is Ranch House Style by Katherine Samon. I'm not sure if either of these have solutions that will work for you but they are worth checking out at your local library or bookstore.
That was the one I must have seen somewhere, the updating one. I'll have to take a look, although I want to update mine to be an un-ranch. Thanks for the info Anne!
And where are you on this thread missy...?
(TXgal the real ranch woman)"Whiskey for my men, and beer for my horses"Willy Nelson and Toby Keith
I absolutely loved my ranch home, but it would depend on your lifestyle. The master was on one end of the 2800 sf home with a den and piano room separating it from the living room, kitchen, dining and other 3 bedrooms. It was a 50+ year old ranch and I removed the walls separating these spaces with double french doors. This worked well for our family since we enjoy our individual activities but still like to feel as though we are close to each other. I think the ranch style makes the house look so much larger. An added benefit was the zoned HVAC that could be programmed according to the time of day.
I got a terrific deal on a 1625 square foot rancher three years ago. It was about 25,000 less than anything comparable. The main problem with the house is the size of the kitchen and bathrooms. I want to enlarge all of them. As you enter the front door, you enter into a small entryway. The living room is open on the left, the family room is forward and also open, the kitchen is through the family room and behind the living room. There is a large utility/hobby room off the kitchen, behind the double garage. My kitchen is galley style, aproximately 8 feet by 10 feet, wall to wall. There is a dinet area at the end of the cabinets between the kitchen and family room. I'd not have chosen the configuration if the price, quality, workmanship, neighborhood, state of repair, size of lot hadn't jumped so far forward. I need help planning a remodel on the kitchen. (The house is 30 years old and had been used as a rental for some years.) I've mentally removed the walls in the three rooms to make it more useable but nothing really works for me. To make it more difficult, there is a dorway from the kitchen into the utility/hobby room wouldn't work well to move and there is a very nice large corner fireplace on the outsidede wall of the family room. Because the fireplace, the french doors to the patio, the window over the table area in the eating nook and the kitchen sink cabinets are all on the rear wall, we have made the living room area into my husband's (very important) theatre room. The spot designed for the refrigerator was about an inch too narrow for our refrigerator so it sits on the carpet at the end of the cabinets in the eating area, across from the window. Our family room thus has become our dining room holding also a sofa and a desk. Eclectic, huh. Every time I come up with a 'plan' there is some major obstacle. (Like a huge hemlock about 15 feet straight out from the kitchen window.)
Does anyone have ideas for designing a galley kitchen? (I have a large bank of floor to ceiling cupboards in the utililty I use for a pantry and to store appliances, bowls, etc that I don't use often.) It's just my husband myself living here. My kids are grown and the grandkids are pre-teens.
We fixed up a 40-something year old ranch (1600 sq ft) a couple of years ago - the kitchen had a dining area at the end - we removed the cabinets that divided the kitchen from the dining area, and replaced all the cabinets to form an "L" from the old kitchen, right along the old dining area. the open side of the "L" is where we placed our table & chairs, and added new lighting above. The whole thing opened up wonderfully - the before & after pictures are still before we put crown trim on the upper cabinets, and before I got my table & chairs:
Oh, and note the interesting wall-paper etc. This house was a repo, and the prior occupants had interesting taste (purple & green exterior paint!)
Looks like I messed up attaching the picture - here is another go:
Am getting into this very late. Trying to visualize your 2800' ranch. Any way you could draw & post it? Am looking for one to re-do now - the craze hasn't hit my McMansion growing yet! Have the Taunton re-do book and think it will be very useful.
I have a diagram somewhere on my old hard drive. I will try to retrieve it in the next couple of days.
I grew up in a split-level in Montgomery County (Calverton, to be exact) and now own a ranch in Portland, Oregon. I just love it, but at less than 1300 sf upstairs and about 600 sf in the basement, my family of three and hopefully four is going to need more space. I don't want to enlarge the footprint too much...I garden and want to keep as much outdoor space as I can. So, we plan to bump out a bit of the back for a garden room off the living/dining room/kitchen and add a second story for bedrooms and a studio/office for me. I was truly inspired by the article on the second story addition (in the Sligo Creek area of Silver Spring) in the Sept/Oct issue of Inspired House. The second story wall facing the street is made of a translucent building material (Kalwall?) that looks like frosted glass. This wall is open to the first floor, bringing an incredible amount of light into the house in a very wooded location, much like my home here. The second story is set back from the front, making the house look not so big, an important consideration when adding a second story to a ranch in a neighborhood of ranches.
I think part of the ranch's resurgence comes from the nostalgia of people of a certain age. I was born in 1967 and grew up watching Happy Days and the Wonder Years and still believe the 1950s and 60s were golden eras of the 20th Century. Also the trendiness of "MidCentury" and other modern furniture may be sending folks "back to the ranch." My sleek Scandanavian furniture looks great in our ranch house, but my husband's ornate French stuff just doesn't work. (Trying tell HIM that!)
Chris
We live in a ranch house but unlike you, I am deadset to change the character of the house (and right now, I am heavily leaning towards bungalow, ha!). Truth be told, it's only a ranch from the exterior, the interior is pretty open and functional. It's not all that old, that may have something to do with it. Like you, we bought our property because of the lot, not the house.
I know I have seen a book recently about ranch remodels, but of course I can't remember any details about it that might help you find it. Grrr. I'll see if I can find it again somehow.
Good luck and if you find a book about remodels, please post back, I'd be interested also!
Here is my small ranch house reading list, to date.
Ranch House Style, Katherine Samon
Rancho Deluxe, Alan Hess
Western Ranch Houses, Cliff May (both the 1997 and 1958 editions - very different)
Of course, Taunton has some great (and so-so) titles too, some riffs on Christopher Alexander's "pattern language" concepts.
~Stacy
I was up your way day before yesterday, getting the Christmas tree. Lovely weather to be tromping around the Maryland piedmont with three guys and a bowsaw. Fortunately, the farm had precut a couple dozen good trees and wasn't letting anyone back into the tree fields.
I've got a quasi-ranch in southern Montgomery County, MD. Quasi, because it is built into a hillside and has a walk-out basement. I've heard this style called "California Style" and I was surprised to hear the real estate agent call it a "rambler/ranch." It doesn't ramble anywhere.
We're on a cul-de-sac in an old suburb, and the house is built in the narrow end of a wedge-shaped lot, so our only option for expansion is up. That won't happen for along time, if ever, but I wish I could move walls around inside. I'd like to convert a kitchen, breakfast room, screened porch and den into a big kitchen family room.
Tish,
Sounds like you are describing my house.
I really believe you are right about the resurgence of the ranch. I just moved into a rental home in a very extensive, well-kept and consistent neighborhood of ranch houses in Portland OR, and darned if it doesn't look somehow, "fresh" and "the next hot thing." There's enough unity of style, and yet variety to make it quite interesting to walk around. I haven't been here long enough to know how many have been redone.
"Our whole American way of life is a great war of ideas, and librarians are the arms dealers selling weapons to both sides."
-James Quinn
Glad to hear that you are getting settled in OR. How was the move?
Oh, hey, TXgal! Haven't checked in over here in awhile. The move was totally trouble free. No damage, van arrived when it should, polite careful workers. My car was undamaged. I was very pleased. I'm a lot poorer, but I could never have done the move myself. I used Armstrong Relocation, a United franchise, out of Canton, Ohio. I give them a good recommendation. After all the research I had done on moving, and hearing horror stories, I was very worried. The research itself helped me out tremendously, though, in preparing for all that was involved."Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind."~William Shakespeare, Mid-Summer Night's Dream, 1595
I've been house hunting this weekend and looking at nothing but ranches, the deed restrictions in the part of houston I'm looking at only allow for 1 stories... A ranch seems to be a lot of things, a canvas to be drawn upon as you like. There are some rules, but not too many.
A kind of blank canvas - too true! I bought the new Taunton book on remodeling ranches, which offers helpful suggestions like, don't worry about how the outside of the house looks - concentrate on the interior and the flow from inside to outside. I'm pleased with the book. And yet, I want even more, including grungy examples of solutions from real life (not just pretty, high-end examples). I'm currently looking at other books on designing for small spaces. One of my favorites is DiDonno and Sperling's "How to Redesign & Renovate Your House or Apartment." - full of ideas and practical matter, too.