What is the style of your ranch home? Make sure you carry the details through both buildings.

Colonial

Please post pictures of your home.

You accept the home AS IS, unless you are willing to spend enormous amounts of money to make it into something it IS NOT. A low ceilinged and low pitched roof ranch is not a form that you can economically make into something else, with different ceiling heights, etc. You would need to tear it down and start over.

Go buy a 90's-20's McHouse. It's what you really want. Bumps and humps and material changes and nonsensical roof pitches that don't match. Badly designed homes surround us. So there's no point in taking something with a sensible historical design and trying to make it into a badly designed "modern" gargoyle home.

This is the original house and what I was thinking.

These are Ai images, but something to give an idea of what is in my head. I’m not sure if any of this is structurally or financially possible, but I’m trying to get a reality check. The last image portrays the house with steps, so imagine that without steps.

What you have is better than what you want. Unless you have a couple of hundred thousand for a vanity project, leave it alone.

I agree with Minardi. What you have is better than what you want. You have a nice looking house, that fits in most neighborhoods, and you want to make it freaky looking. Enjoy what it is, and stop trying to make it something it isnt.There is nothing wrong with a house from the 70's. It may need to have updates on wiring and plumbing, and heating, and maybe even some newer type flooring, but, they are most likely built better than some of the houses today. There is nothing wrong with 8 foot ceilings either. They give a nice cozy vibe to a house.

Just ditch the AI, it makes everything look glossy and new, which is attractive, but not realistic and price is no object.

What you are really wanting to do is to do a teardown, and build all new. But without the mess, expense, and time.

Just wear your AI glasses when you drive in the driveway.

^^^Hideous. And very expensive to get to hideous. Coulda been a teardown and so much better. And cheaper.