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My (Incredibly Boring) Ranch House Got An (Incredibly Cool) Facelift

ideas for how to make a boring ranch house feel modern

When we first moved into our house, I did a lot of work on the inside - adding entryway tile, turning a tiny bedroom into an office/playroom, adding lighting, et cetera - but aside from doing some (necessary, thanks to the drought) xeriscaping, I pretty much gave up on the house exterior. It was tan and dusty blue - with an orange-brick "accent wall" - and sure, I figured, I could paint it...but it'd still look like what it was: a more or less personality-free ranch house built in 1969. It's not the kind of house that screams, "Emphasize my architectural details and singular flair!" Because on this house, details and flair are nowhere to be found.

But still, every time I drove up to the house, it bugged me how much I disliked it. So the first thing I did was paint my door pink. This was done pretty poorly, because I did it myself, but at least it helped (a little). Then I decided that the orange brick was the next-worst spot, and my friend Erin helped me do a mortar wash on it. And then, when we had our kitchen done, I was so impressed by how excellent and affordable the painters were that I asked for a quote on painting the house, and: yes. (FYI, in case you're local: I used Proficient Painters. If you click over to their site you'll see pics of this makeover, but that's not because they did the work for a discount or anything - I just liked them a lot, so I gave them pics to use in their gallery.)

What I decided to do: give a sort of nod to the house's 1969 build date with a mod-ish color palette of white, black and pink, and then figure out a few places to add high-impact details.

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Home Tour: Elise Alden’s Family-Friendly Mountain Retreat

Elise Alden's airy, cozy home in the mountains.

You know my friend Elise? The one who's an amazing party-planner and an amazing bananacake-maker, and owns the cutest kids' boutique in addition to managing glam | camp and designing and curating the most adorable little-kid clothing and accessories on the planet? (No but really: this necklace just got added to the site and I am DYING. Dyinnnnnng.)

Unsurprisingly, Elise's house is as warm and bright and sweet as she is. My favorite thing about it - besides its location in the Los Gatos mountains, which is basically paradise - she transformed it from a dark, dated space into a breezy home that's both comfortable and fun for kids, and beautifully chic for entertaining. And she did this not by spending zillions of dollars on decor, but rather by pulling together mismatched pieces from antique shops, thrift stores, and DIYing wherever she could - sidenote, the woman painted her two-story house exterior herself, which makes her an actual superhero - and ended up with a house that's completely her, from the hand-painted wall design in her girls' book nook to the ramshackle glam (sorry, had to) living room.

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Before And After: Our Kitchen Makeover Reveal

I've been dying to do something with our kitchen since the day we moved in. There's nothing especially hideous about it; it's just...dark. And when I take photos in it it's just super off-brand, you know? (Kidding. But only sort of, because I'm a blogger and photograph stuff in my kitchen all the time and how dark it is makes me nuts.)

Let's take a look at the before. (Note: when I moved in there was a black-brown-grey-white tiled backsplash, which I took out and drywalled over, and I replaced the off-white tiled floors with grey composite wood beams. So this is more like the "before...after I had one pass at it.")

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Ramshackle Glam’s Top 10 Ikea Finds: Spring 2017

First things first: my children have now joined the ranks of People Who Have Been Traumatized by the Swamp Scene in The Neverending Story. 

The horse dies. Of sadness. (Artax noooooooo!)

On the positive side, they were traumatized while sitting in what might be the coolest kids' chairs ever created. Technically these things are called LÖMSKes, but we call them Space Eggs. We didn't intend to come home from our Sunday Ikea trip with Space Eggs, but come on: you would have bought them, too.

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The Springtime Bed

Floral Embroidered Bedding Set

Kendrick and I are terribly, horribly mismatched when it comes to our internal thermostats. He is literally always freezing and constantly accusing me of stealing his covers, which cannot possibly be true because when I sleep I transform into a human furnace. Nobody is allowed to touch me, because I will sweat myself into a puddle, and "nobody" includes covers other than the ones that are absolutely required in order to prevent the monster under the bed from touching my feet.

Despite the fact that bedding is a contentious issue in my house, it's still one of my favorite things to shop for: it just instantly transforms your space. If you're in the market for some pretty new bedding to make you feel all airy and fresh and springy, I put a rundown of some current faves below.


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