When is a raised ranch not just a boring mid century American home? When it has interesting architecture! I’m convinced any home we have from this point on (ranch style or not) must have some kind of fun architectural element. Granted older homes (pre 1940s) usually have better style and class, but I like the beams, brick and oak floors in our circa 1960 home.

The first image is our living room, you can see the brick wall with the wood stove and kitchen behind it. The sunporch is off to the side with the 2x4s and insulation. There’s a fire place directly below this one in the downstairs family room. It’s scary down there so no pictures for now!

In the second picture you can see part of the oak railing Andy’s dad built for our stairs. I stained and polyurethaned it and we hung our Christmas stockings from it. Since we use our wood stove we couldn’t hang stockings over the fire place…it’d be a very bad idea ;-)

In the third image you can see the beams extend outside the house, it gives a really nice effect outside as well. Yes, that’s unfinished drywall but I honestly don’t even notice it anymore, until I was uploading the picture of course.