At first, a sister and brother couldn’t envision how to upgrade their inherited childhood home. However, by the time that this whole-house renovation was complete, they understood they needed to sell it to prevent a feud over who got to reside there.
The house sat in a fantastic location with a big, lovely backyard but the siblings’ attempts to receive it sale ready (new paint, new carpeting) were insufficient. “If you strike the proper areas and work creatively within a budget, frequently you can double your investment,” says designer and general contractor Jonas DiCaprio of Design Platform, an architecture and construction company. In this case, the house was worth $240,000 before the renovations, the renovations totaled between $70,000-$80,000, and the house sold for $370,000.
in a Glance:
Who lives here: New owners. During the renovations, the house was owned by a sister and brother who inherited their childhood home from their parents and wanted to make it ready to sell.
Location: Southeast of downtown Denver, Colorado, in the Bible Park neighborhood
Size: 2,639 square feet; five bedrooms; three baths
Scope of this job: Complete house, such as gutting the kitchen and baths, including hardwood flooring, opening the floor plan, decorative changes to all the bedrooms and changing a cellar workshop to a rec room.
Year Built: 1967
Design Platform
“The house had a whole lot of nasty maroon and green onto the facade,” says DiCaprio. “We needed to work together with all the brown roof and gold brown brick, so we went with an easy black and white palette.” The architects also included a bright orange doorway to grab attention, and also added the decorative cement border to expand the very narrow driveway.
Before Photo
BEFORE: Indoors, a entrance cupboard cut the living space away from the dining room, creating chopped-up, dark spaces.
Design Platform
AFTER: The painters removed the cupboard, moved the kitchen in the former dining room space and added a massive beam. Now natural light spreads from one side of the house to another.
Design Platform
The designers stored money in the kitchen intestine renovation using black Ikea cabinets and then adding custom details. “Ikea cabinets are great quality and they cost about a third of the purchase price of custom or semicustom cabinets,” says DiCaprio. “While you can’t refinish them you may just replace the fronts should you ever need a change.” They swapped in higher-end modern Sugatsune handles and pulls.
The wall-mounted cabinet to the best of this stove can be from Ikea. “It is shallower than a standard cabinet, so it does not affect the window,” says DiCaprio. The backsplash works up into the base of the cabinet, reflecting the light.
Glazed ceramic tile in architectural grey: Daltile
Design Platform
The designers dressed the cabinets by adding rift white oak details, wrap the ends of the pantry, cabinets and island in the timber, in addition to creating a custom rift white oak refrigerator surround.
Before Photo
BEFORE: This earlier shot was taken at approximately the exact same angle as the previous picture. The former dining room was transformed into a part of the spacious kitchen. Look to the far left and you will see the fireplace shown in the next picture.
Before Photo
BEFORE: DiCaprio moved the dining room in order to make the most of this fireplace — well, this fireplace using a really dramatic makeover, since this one is not very appetizing.
Design Platform
AFTER: The brand new dining room takes advantage of this previously obsolete fireplace, which failed a significant facelift.
Design Platform
“We covered the instant present encircle in black grill paint that is fire-resistant,” says DiCaprio. “We then covered the facade in El Dorado stone, which is a veneer. We finished it by trimming out it in rift white oak, which we also used in the kitchen.
“We also used 4-inch rift white oak on the flooring,” he adds. “Oak is a frequent ranch aspect, but generally red oak. We chose rift white oak to freshen up things; it casts more brown tones instead of the typical ranch red.”
Design Platform
DiCaprio knocked down more walls and created an open floor plan. The dining room and kitchen open to one another, which divides up everything and allows the person cooking trip with relatives and guests.
Before Photo
BEFORE: The guest bath and its own salmon-colored countertop were, quite frankly, depressing. “I don’t know why the majority of these ranches have these built in soffits using all the awful lights,” says DiCaprio. The room had a grim tub, which he was able to reglaze and keep for only $300. “It might have cost at least $800 to replace the bathtub with a poor quality fiberglass bathtub,” he states.
Design Platform
AFTER: “By incorporating subway tile from floor to ceiling, we brightened up the space,” says DiCaprio. The dressing table is from Ikea; DiCaprio splurged on the custom-built medicine cabinet.
Before Photo
BEFORE: From the master bath, this shower/commode configuration was less than perfect.
Design Platform
AFTER: DiCaprio made a tiny space from another room to enlarge this bathroom. This allowed for a lengthy, curbless open shower which does not require a shower door. Using glass leaves the room look much bigger.
Hint: Placing the faucet handle away from the showerhead, as you see here, makes it effortless to switch it on without getting blasted by cold water.
“It is funny, we get some jobs where the sky is the limit in terms of budget, but somehow functioning within a budget can ignite more creativity,” says DiCaprio.
More:
Rejuvenated Ranch
Cozy and Family-Friendly Space