{ The Ranch }

Today my house crash is of my own sister's house! I've been excited to show you her before and after's because it looks really really great.

My sister and her hubby affectionately call their home the ranch -hence the title. It's not really a ranch per say...I mean kind of... if you consider lots of acres and chickens and turkeys and apple trees and corn fields a ranch, ok I guess it is kind of a ranch! This home was originally built and owned by my brother-in-law's aunt and uncle, did you follow that? It's a cute house with beautiful land surrounding it. I mean beautiful. If you follow my sister's blog she started writing about their makeover here.

 When they bought the house a couple years ago it was move in ready and they've slowly changed up a few things according to their style, like re-doing a bedroom for their twins, getting new carpet, painting walls and now they have made a pretty dramatic change with new siding, a new porch, new entry doors and a deck removed with big plans in the works for their backyard! The photo above and below are before pictures.

The logs on the house were a lot of upkeep and this year they would have had to strip them and paint them and fill in the chink (the stuff between the logs) for general maintenance -so instead they decided to give their home a whole new updated look which suits their tastes a lot more than the logs.

Although the log home style was gorgeous- I mean who doesn't love a log home, with all the charm and farm feel but the updated version is just as beautiful and will require no maintenance other than general cleaning which is great for them because they spend the majority of their time chasing around their almost two year old twins! Who's got time for log maintenance-right?!

Here's a pic of my darling niece and nephew from their first birthday party. Doesn't get much cuter than that folks! I just love them to pieces and those two crazy cats keep my sister and her hubs on their toes!



Back to the makeover... Here's a snap of the front before.

All those logs had to be ripped off the house. Jared and lots of helpers did that work so they could save some mula in the long run which was a great choice. Why not do as much as you can to save some dough right, at least that's our moto!

They chose vertical vinyl siding for parts of the house, shake siding and regular vinyl siding for other parts. The photo below is of the front of the house (obviously) but this was before the new porch steps and railings were built. You can see they picked a nice dark shade for the vertical siding on the front. 

and here it is with the new steps and porch rails and posts! Beautiful no?! They have plans to stain the new rails, posts and steps but that will be tackled next year.

The stairs got a little wider as did the new posts. They also had a new door installed and side lights as well.

The new door got some pretty paint. I am in LURVE with that color. You may see it pop up in my own house very soon...hint hint...

Here's a side view. This side has all three types of siding. This one is before the new rails and posts.

Here is after. GORGEOUS!

The deck was removed off the back of the house. They have plans to do a large patio. For now they have a few simple steps they are using to enter. They added some new entry lights back here too. They are goose neck style.

It's absolutely beautiful. I know they are really happy with the final results and I am happy that they now have a very manageable, practically no-maintenance home! Not only do they have busy almost two year old twins, but my sister has been struggling for quite some time now with her seizures which she writes about on her blog so they needed to have this update to simply make their lives a little less crazy and it is perfect, what a difference some new siding will make huh?!

Thanks for reading today guys and letting me share my sister's beautiful home with you all!

Happy Hump Day!