How to Change the Appearance of a Ranch-Style House

 

In order to change the appearance of your ranch-style house, you can add a new front porch because having a new porch can add a fresher visual appeal. Upgrading of a ranch house should be done every few years such as by changing the roof line, painting the ranch house with a new coat or new color scheme, plus also by adding interesting exterior materials in order to create a fresher look to your ranch-style house. Apart from that, you can also upgrade the surrounding landscape, exterior lighting as well as the driveway areas so that all the old outdated features can be changed into a new and modern look. Any significant changes done to your ranch-style house will definitely increase the investment value of your property whenever you decide to sell the ranch house.

To change the appearance of a ranch-style house, you need:

  • Stacked stone
  • Brick
  • Primer paint
  • Exterior paint
  • Cedar shakes
  • Metal roofing
  • Windows
  • French doors
  • Glass blocks


Changing the appearance of a ranch-style house

How to Change the Appearance of a Ranch-style house

  • The first thing that you need to do is to modify the curbside façade by
    • Firstly, you can consider building a new front porch, plus also enclosing a glass room or even adding two storey additions on one of the section of your ranch house.
    • Your new front porch can be designed with a boxy and rectangular look thus giving your ranch a more contemporary style exterior.
    • You can also use exterior materials such as stacked stone or brick to make the front area look different.

You should determine your budget whenever you want to do changes to your ranch-style house. You need to decide on how much you want to spend, whether to do major modification or just a simple renovations.

  • Next step that you can do is to paint your ranch house old surfaces with a new color scheme.
    • Make sure you use a good-quality primer paint especially made for brick. For example, you can change the common red brick ranch house color into a white or cream-colored brick.
    • If you have the budget, you should be using the highest-quality paint for the final coats of your ranch-style house.
    • In order to create a more contemporary look, you can use taupe or pale green colors to paint your shutters and house trim.
  • In order to give your ranch house a cozy cottage appearance, you need to install the roofing materials with a different texture or color. For instance, you can simply add cedar shakes for the roof of a white brick ranch.
    • If you live near a beach area and you have a white brick ranch, you can install a bright blue colored metal roof. As for those who live in the mountain settings, you can use a green colored metal roof and also you can paint the ranch house pale with yellow paint so that it compliments your green metal roof.
  • Another option that you can do to change the appearance of your ranch-style house is by
    • Building a detached garage just beside your ranch house designed with a sharply pitched A-frame roof.
    • The garage roof angle can be used to provide interesting contrast against your ranch roof.
    • Next, you should install the same exterior materials onto the garage as you used for your ranch.
    • Apart from that, you can also add a small home office or even create a small additional apartment upstairs.
  • Then, you can add a much larger windows and also French type doors.
    • In order to allow more natural light to penetrate your ranch house, you need to install bigger windows on the front and back of the house.
    • You can also build a deck area at the back of your ranch which is accessible by using double French doors that you can use either from your bedrooms or dining room.
    • One more changes that you can make are by adding a wall of glass blocks on both ends of your ranch house. By using this glass blocks, you will allow more natural light to penetrate your house.
  • If your ranch house is designed and covered with vinyl siding or bricks, you can also change the existing siding.
    • You need to choose another different type of siding like vinyl siding, aluminum siding, or concrete fiberboard siding so that you can give a fresher look to your ranch house.
    • Besides that, you can also add cedar shingles or even cover up your siding using stone siding.

    Always remember that whenever you want to change the appearance of a ranch-style

    • You need to install new exterior post lights right in front of your house along your front driveway. You need to build a much wider sidewalk pavement using bricks.
    • To make the front border of your home look much fresher, you can just simply plant some small rose bushes or evergreen bushes.
    • Always bear in mind that it is definitely a good idea if you could install a metal roof if your ranch house is using a wood-burning fireplace. However, it is not wise for you to use a cedar shakes roof with a wood-burning fireplace because if there is sparks going up your chimney, your roof can easily be caught on fire.

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