When my husband and I came to see this 1977 brick home, we were exhausted. We’d made quite a few offers on homes in the Greater Seattle between 2015-2017, but due to the lack of inventory and amount of people wanting to buy homes in the area, we lost out on so many homes that we had allowed ourselves to fall in love with. So, when we were given a tip about this little Mid Century Ranch style home potentially hitting the market, we took a look, but definitely didn’t have any of those, “this is where we’re going to build a life together” kind of feelings.

There were a lot of great things about the house and I instantly did see that it had potential. An acre of land in this area, is a HUGE bonus. Good bones, clean lines, good schools… A lot of boxes were certainly checked off on our list of “must haves,” but, a red brick home was never going to be my jam. It was easy to see that the home owners had a great deal of pride in the house and taken great care of the property, which is always a plus, but there was just SO. MUCH. BRICK!

Before I could even convince myself to consider putting an offer on this house, I had to spend some serious time looking at painted brick houses to see if it was going to be a fixer upper I could get on board with. A lot of people think painting brick is a sin, but I loved it. I loved the texture it created and how much character brick homes have. But, as the house stood, I thought it was soooooo boring and lacked some serious curb appeal. However, I like a good challenge, and by that evening, we had reached out to the home owners and drafted up an offer!

We’ve been working on a lot of updates around the house, making it more functional for our family as well as making it more “our” style, but the exterior has continued to remain untouched. Due to insane amounts of rain this past winter though, has pushed the need for a new roof and gutters up, therefore creating a lovely little domino effect that cost buckets of money and had been a little hard for me to get excited about. Accepting reality has been good for me though and here I am today, like a kid on Christmas, ecstatic about this fresh, new facelift our home is about to undergo!

We’re still wrapping up our decision on whether we want to go with black or white, but I feel confident that I’m going to be happy with either. Here’s a quick rendering using Benjamin Moore’s Distant Gray.

And here’s the rendering using Benjamin Moore’s Black Beauty.

Both renderings are quick and dirty, but they help me to get a good visual on the overall outcome. I don't really think I can go wrong with either direction, so it’s all just a matter of what we want to live in for the next few years. AND, what will sell well down the road.

Can’t wait to share how this all comes together over the next few weeks with you all!! Wish me luck! And as always,

- Happy Designing -

heather-scherie

A Mid Century Ranch Finally Gets Some Style