It may be possible but alot of how successful the remodel will be will depend a lot on the particular house. One thing to consider is that most bungalows, which I think a ranch is similar to, tend to be deeper than they are wide while ranch houses are wider than they are deep. This is because lots were shaped differently when most bungalows were built. The shape difference is going to affect how changes like adding a porch or putting on a front gable will look.

Ranch houses also usually have lower roof lines than bungalows, so unless you are willing and able to take the old roof off and replace it with one with a more appropriate slope the results may look a bit unusual.

Another consideration is that one of the things that make bungalows so attractive is the details like exposed rafter tails, wide eaves, trim around the doors and windows, the doors and windows themselves. If you don't get these right you probably will not be satisfied with the results.

If you go this route, try and find a good architect who has experience with and sympathy to the arts and crafts style. This will give you a much better chance of ending up with a house that you will be happy with. A good architect will think of all the things you don't and given the scope of a major remodel, he/she can be surprisingly affordable.

IMHO, no. Sorry, but I do not think it is wise to try to change the architecture of a house like that -- it's not honest to the bungalows, or your ranch, and it's probably cost-prohibitive if done well.

Learn to love your ranch. That is the best thing for you, your wallet, and your house. If you are set on it, you might as well do a tear down and start over, it will probably cost less in the long run.

I know all about not loving the style of the house you're in, but unless your lot is amazingly special or of intense sentimental value, I feel it's better to save the $$$ you would have spent on remodeling and move to a house more closely suited to your aesthetic, when it's possible for you. Plus, unless you are the lone ranch on a street full of bungalows, your house may end up sticking out sore-thumb style.

Joanna

As Patser said, you either need a great architect or a house that already lends itself to a bungalow style. Making the changes you are talking about will be extensive, but if that is what you want and your ranch has no historical significance, then it is just a matter of dollars.
Diane

Are you talking about trim, doors and maybe a front porch? Or what kind of things do you want to do?

My parents took their early 60s era ranch and definitely gave it a bungalow feel. Dad did all of the work himself, and topped it all off by replacing expanses of trim with cedar shingles that he weathered to a soft gray. I'll have to see if I can find a picture. While the house itself isn't a bungalow, Dad's work does make it feel bungalow-esque, which is a very nice counterpart to their collection of Stickley mission oak furnishings on the inside.
:-)

Are you talking about on the inside as in decor or on the outside or both?

Hi Swampee.

Whether or not you can recast a 1950s ranch into an Arts & Crafts mode despends mostly on the aesthetic quality of the house itself. An informal, semi-rustic 1950s ranch, with spacious rooms & wide openings between them; with tall gables over tall, vertically divided windows; with a dark-toned hipped or gabled roof with deeply cantilevered eaves; with broad accent walls & heavy piers of rubble stone rock or tapestry brick; and with rough-sawn wooden siding might make a perfect background for Craftsman-style pieces, just as it is, and for a simple reason: both the earlier furniture & the later house spring from similar aesthetic impulses & both therefore have a similar respect for the subtle beauty of natural colors & materials. The Gamble House in Pasadena, despite its early date, is nothing so much as a well-executed 195Os ranch blown up to giant size.

If, on the other hand, your house is the kind of 195Os house my friends all had when I was growing up--with small rooms, narrow hallways & hollow-core doors; with short double-hung windows surrounded by skimpy trim, with pink-&-black plastic tile in the baths; with turquoise counters & appliances in the kitchen; with gigantic plate-glass picture windows flanked by teensy wooden shutters; with a pale gray asphalt tile roof & only a band of one or two courses of gray cinderblocks to separate the expanse of wide-lap pastel siding from a wide swatch of crewcut crabgrass--then trying to create the expansive aura of an earlier period will be a harder--but not impossible--task, and here's a paragraph from Edith Wharton's The Decoration of Houses, that--despite the fact that it was written in 1897, and that it's talking about rooms, and that it's talking about a completely different style than the one we're discussing here, besides--explains why:

"[T]he esence of a style lies not in its use of ornament but in its handling of proportion. Structure conditions ornament, not ornament structure. In other words, decoration is always subservient to proportion, and a room, whatever its decoration may be, must represent the style to which its proportions belong. The less cannot include the greater.

Unfortunately, it is usually by ornamental details, rather than by proportion, that people distinguish one style from another. To many persons, garlands, bow-knots, quivers & a great deal of gilding represent the Louis XVI style. [A]n architect familiar with the subject knows that a Louis XVI room may may exist without any of these, and he often deprecates these as representing the cheaper & more trivial effects of the period, and those that have most helped vulgarize it. In fact, in nine cases out of ten, his use of them is a concession to the client, who having asked for Louis XVI room, would would not know he had got it were these details left out."

In other words, you can't just stick leaded glass doors, copper lanterns & Craftsman-style wooden brackets onto a typical 195Os tract house, Mr. Potato Head-style, and expect to get a good-looking result. It doesn't work that way. But that doesn't mean you're stuck with aqua siding & white wrought-iron porch railings, either. It's just a matter of using the right colors & finishes & planting materials, materials that are compatible with both the actual period of the house itself and the also with the feel of the earlier period, rather than trying to gussy-up your house with inauthentic details that are incompatible with the structure--the proportions--of your house and that have a sstuck-on look. How about posting some photos so we can see what you have to work with?

Regards,
MAGNAVERDE

I have a different take than the posters so far, because no architectural style is born in isolation. It borrows from earlier styles, emphasizing some features, deemphasizing others until a new, identifiable style emerges. I wouldn't hesitate to study up on the details you love and apply them in small, affordable ways to your home (since I haven't seen a picture, I just want to clarify that I'm picturing a typical 50's ranch, not MCM or another highly stylized version of a ranch). There is no reason to live without the even subtle references to lines and colors which bring us joy.

There is an evolutionary relationship between a ranch and a A & C bungalow, in terms of purpose and origin. You can reference that relationship out through clever choices in accents and materials. Think warmth, informality, simple, forthright and functional-- Broad horizontal lines, low roofs and use of well-crafted natural materials.

I don't think you should try to turn it into something it isn't, or fight the lines too much, but a few judicially added details could make all of the difference.

In terms of specific suggestions, a pic would be helpful, as would general location, as we don't know what indigenous materials would have been used on the A & C homes of your area, but you can easily find that out yourself. So, ideas off the top of my head:

1) A & C screen and/or front door

2) color schemes from the movement

3) A and C style window boxes (regional use of shutters)

4) Use of indigenous materials/colors for exterior which evoke the style (copper lanterns and mailboxes, indigenous stones for use in path to front door, historical Craftsman paint palette, etc )

5) Trimwork - of closely similar widths for rake, fascia (rarely applied), and exterior casings - by current standards narrower at rakes and fascia, wider at casings.

6) Steps and stairs - always appear solid

7) Visual planes -emphatically horizontal (this certainly fits with many ranch styles)

Lastly, there are many talented Photo-shoppers on this board who give generously of their time and could help you visualize your ideas. Have fun and enjoy the process...

Wow! Great responces so far. As far as changing the house and structure thats not going to happen for money reasons. I looking to alter it more through color, trim, furniture, and other things. Im going to try to post a picture and explain what Im thinking of doing if I can fiqure out posting a picture on here.

My friends owned a typical split level. They did little on the outside (except painted the trim in Craftsman colors and added house numbers that go along with the style). But, once you walked in, it definitely had the Craftsman feel. One of them is a fantastic woodworker, so he put in all the trim, flooring, made furniture, etc. The only thing that I thought detracted from it were "Craftsman" photographs and posters that I could never imagine someone like FLW using in a home. It didn't look like a bungalow, but it had the same calm and warm feeling that I get when I walk into an A and C home.

I'm no expert (as you can tell!) but I thought it was done very well-- so it is possible to a certain extent.

I live in a small home built in 1928. One of the things I appreciate about the people who owned the house before me is that they didn't try to make the house into something it was not... for instance, a 1950 rambler. Oh, they replaced the hex-tile countertops in the kitchen with hideous fake formica in harvest gold, and painted the bedroom (and hardware, including doorknobs) tomato red, but they didn't knock walls down to turn a bedroom into a pool room or replace all the beveled tulip windows with aluminum sliders. I'm sure the house seemed pretty old-fashioned to the owners in the 60's who rolled avocado green shag carpet over the white oak floors. But the floors were still there for us to discover and refinish, 40 years later. And because the house wasn't hacked about, it still hangs together in the same natural, harmonious way it did in 1928.

So in your quest to recreate another era, Swampee, honor the era your house comes from. It may have something worth preserving, just for its own sake. Even if it's not a designated landmark.

Good luck with your paint and decor.

Many ranch homes are non-descript at best in style. If this is the case with your home, don't worry about making it something that it's not. You see all the time in home renovation magazines houses that were transformed into something that they "were not," and the results are fabulous. I say go for it.

pegrini: I'd love to see some pics of your home.

swampee: I think Arts and Crafts/Bungalow style in a ranch house would look strange. But that's just me.

Just in general, it seems wrong to change a house from one era to another, but adding elements of the style you love seems okay. I have seen weathered shakes and wide posts on a rancher's exterior that add some nice A&C character.

Perhaps you should try to picture a future buyer coming in and saying "Let's return this rancher to its original bones". That can only be done if you have not changed anything huge...just deco.

Just my thoughts...