Raised Ranch Renovation – the reno begins

It has been 3 weeks since we purchased this beauty and renovations started immediately. I thought I’d post some updates as the renovations continue at a steady pace. Raised ranch renovation – the reno begins!

I don’t know if you remember the basement was lovely dark paneling with a dated brick fireplace. You can see all the before’s here. Many gallons of white primer and paint have gone into transforming this room into a light, bright happy place. There is still much work to do such as painting the door and new flooring, but really, for a bunch of paint this is quite the transformation. The stair railings will also get a fresh coat of black paint.

Here is the main bath. This room is almost finished. If you remember, it had green fixtures (toilet/tub/sink) and a very vibrant floral-ish wallpaper. We had the tub professionally painted (it’s cast iron so worth keeping), new subway tile in a soldier pattern (standing vertical in rows), new flooring, vanity, and fixtures. This is an amazing transformation for very little money! We are very happy to have a fully functioning bathroom, for lots of reasons. 🙂

This is the master shower. When we demolished the old shower, we found they put it 12″ from the exterior wall, so we gained a whole foot in this shower! It’s large and roomy and we will be tiling it this week.

The kitchen … this is always the most challenging area and this kitchen was no exception. Originally we wanted to take down the wall between the kitchen and dining room (which we did) and thoughts were to take down the wall between the kitchen and living room (second picture). BUT, there was that weird pocket door in the kitchen which left us a pretty hefty header and a large opening. SO, to avoid any structural changes, we left the big openings and designed around it. I’m really happy with how it is coming out. We moved the sink because the previous sink was under the window with the dishwasher opening into you – not the most practical layout. The sink will now go in the “island” along with the dishwasher which gives much more storage and you have a much better dish washing experience. We added additional storage in the dining area and have some cool things planned for there so stayed tuned. The storage in this kitchen I would say quadrupled from what it was. That is important. This is a pretty small kitchen so it was difficult to design it to get the most use out of every square inch.

I don’t think I posted a before of this room. This is the basement bedroom. It used to be a horrible green – like everything was green. It’s a light bright large room so this is a great space. All the bedrooms have been painted. This room needs a new floor (which you can see awaiting installation).

That is the update so far! There are a lot of tedious jobs being done like cutting down overgrown bushes (and learning what poison sumac is – the hard way!), painting closet doors, installing all new switches and outlets, and painting galore! We’ve had professionals in to replace the heating/cooling system, update the electrical including the main panel, and paint the tub. Everything else has been done by us and some fearless, kind, generous friends and family.