CamG, I really like he latest rendition with only one gable. I agree with using taller windows. Will you have divided lites? I think this is similar to what virgilcarter is suggesting: We used 8x8 . The columns were slightly off the ground so we put in trim pieces. I would reconsider the stone on the front of the porch. I didn't realize this needed to be specified in advance. We didn't have a brick or stone ledge so it was too late by the time I decided to put stone. Maybe just put in the stone ledge just in case you change your mind.

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

Our first home was a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, one level living (with basement/garage - right end): Three kids and 10 years later, it became a 4 bedroom, 3.5 bath, story and a half. I always thought it looked like a modern craftsman. Old brick house couldn't be matched exactly, so we shingled upper master bedroom suite - sitting room/front, bath/open space center, bedroom/back of house. The back looked just like the front. Hipped roof. FP Chimney was continued up and left exposed: We added arches to the front porch, boxed the post and added a shingle base to the post. Also added a custom wooden, divided glass front outer door. Can't find a good picture of the porch from outside: Also can't find a picture that shows the sides of upper floor. The sides are not shingled (more expensive) but painted board. House sits on a corner, so you never see the side unless you are coming into the garage. I think your home will look great as a modern craftsman.

You have a lovely house but it looks chopped up. The two parts, each with a door, kinda makes your house look like a semi-detached house. I think once you decide on your windows, you should try and make this house look more cohesive. Perhaps changing the colour of your siding to match closer to the grey shake colour and not white like you are thinking. I would definitely play down the door on the right and make it disappear. Perhaps you could achieve this with landscaping and really make your actual front door be the focal point. Maybe plant mid-sized shrubs and a couple freestanding trellises with climbing plants so it's blocked off from the front door and hidden or partially hidden from the street. It doesn't look like you have a sidewalk to the door on the right which you could add. I think your goal should be cleverly disguising the utility door so your actual front door is the focal point by unifying styles and colours and adding landscaping.