1950s Ranch House Makeover

Last week's post was about the great memories I have from working on a house rehab with my two kids and my son's girlfriend.  I don't have any "before" pictures, but yesterday Doug, who is a professional photographer, took pictures for the realtor to use in marketing the house, so I thought I'd share our handiwork here.  We staged the house with minimal furniture--beds that were already there, lamps and accessories that we pulled together from the house itself and our own stuff, and living room furniture that we borrowed from our friends.  But we left the walls bare and the windows dressed with just simple mini-blinds.

It's truly amazing what a difference it makes just painting the walls and tearing out old carpet. Alex also replaced all of the interior doors with 6-panel doors, installed new hardware on the kitchen cabinets, replaced the blue sink and toilet with white ones, painted the tub upstairs and the shower downstairs, and replaced all of the light switches, outlets, and switch and outlet covers. With some donated supplies, he spent just about $3500.

The living room:

The kitchen:

The master bedroom:

The guest room:

The den:

The main floor bathroom:

The bonus room downstairs:

The downstairs bathroom:

The project has inspired Alex to think about buying a shell to rehab in Baltimore, where he and Ashleigh are currently renting a house.

Wish I lived a little closer so I could help out more....