A surreal change: The Ranch House

One year ago, we were living in a one bedroom apartment, trying to move past the dream of renovating a brick ranch on a double lot. The amount of money it would take to fix windows, electric, roof, and plumbing (before we even got to the fun makeover stuff) was beyond our reach. Then this morning over coffee, I stumbled across a new listing. "Our" little brick ranch had been completely overhauled and there's an open house tomorrow. Totally going!

The house when we first saw it

 

I'm going to share some before and afters, because holy cow!

Many of the before shots do not line up with the after, so bear with me here. First, grandma's kitchen. We had the usual plans: new floors, countertops, no wallpaper, and re-face the cabinets.

You win, flipper. I'm personally not a fan of the washed out hardwood floors, but this is still gorgeous! Love the counters and backsplash, and stained cabinets bring some warmth to the space. Also love the sink light.

Original living room (central in the house) was walled on three sides and opened to the sunken living room/fireplace room. It shared a wall with the "master" bedroom, wide threshold with the parlor/dining room, and a support wall with the hallway. We had wanted open up the hallway wall, steal some square footage for the master bedroom, but leave the parlor/dining room intact.

Left (hallway wall), middle (bedroom wall), right (opening to fireplace room), this is looking from parlor/dining room

Wow. So, they nearly completely eliminated the hallway wall and parlor. The camera person is essentially in the far corner of the "parlor." We love that they also opened up the basement staircase, which used to be completely enclosed. The front entryway is to the left of the stairs. Below, you can see the parlor/dining room, the large window being the sliding glass doors out to the patio, the left entryway peering into the original living room, the right door leading to the laundry room, and the camera person is viewing from the kitchen entry.

We had planned this to be the office, with french doors in the thresholds. It had a beautiful parquet floor.

Next off, the family/fireplace room. All the windows needed replacing. Our plan was to replace those, paint the fireplace, put down new carpet, and paint the paneling (but leave the beams).

Well done, flippers.

I'm really glad they didn't paint the beams! I think the room would've lost its cozy vibe. Even while we marvel at the transformation, we kind of miss some of the grandma's house/homey vibe we'd felt there. We can't wait to go to the open house tomorrow and get a feel.

Here's a closer shot of the entry way. They eliminated the hall and closet by opening up the basement stairs. There was totally groovy green tile by the door that we would've kept for our own amusement, but it's probably best that was eliminated.

I'm not going to put everything up here, but another dramatic before and after would be in the basement aka The Lava Room. The whole thing was decked out in fiery red carpet, including the bar, and had paneling on all four walls. There was even a mirror wall with gold veins running across it.

Our home inspection revealed that there had been a sewer backup and mold growing behind the paneling. The main sewer stack also needed replacing. There was also an interesting situation with one of the windows. It was cracked and filled with concrete and sediment from the patio that had been paved over it. The inspector said, "That is going to burst, you need to fix it. I just don't know how." Judging from work we could see on our drivebys, they dug up the patio (it was slanted toward the house and needed to be re-done), so we'll be interested to see what they did with that little issue.

They also added a fourth bedroom down here. I think it's through that door in the left corner. It used to be an unfinished workshop and furnace room.

The flippers decided to keep the double lot together, rather than dividing the property. This was the main draw of the property for us and will likely be for new buyers. It's pretty rare to get a lot (.6 acres) that large (at that price) in our 'burbs. For the yard, they didn't add anything, just trimmed up trees that desperately needed it.

We're going to check it out tomorrow. Are we regretful? No way. We love our house and know we would've been financially and emotionally sunk if we took this on. It was definitely tempting, because the neighborhood is affordable and wedged between very expensive neighborhoods (including new builds), the school district is fantastic, and houses that are updated and come on the market sell at nice prices, so definitely a good investment opportunity.

However, there's no way we could've done what these flippers did. We just hope that the big issues (mold in basement and attic, electric, plumbing, roof) were taken care of and it's not all aesthetic improvements. We hope whoever buys it enjoys that big yard (and all the new pretty things).