The Split - love it or hate it

Its so funny how split levels/ split entries/ raised ranches have such a nasty reputation. Yet they are everywhere!!! It makes sense why they became popular, as they do not require a full dug basement, they offer a lot of space, and from my research they are pretty cheap to construct. I will say, in our house hunting I NEVER WANTED A SPLIT! I know as we did some research to potentially sell our home, our realtor reminded us in comps that "that is a cape/colonial/etc, etc, you have a raised ranch - people don't want raised ranches".
All of this makes me feel a little sad for my poor house. I mean, I think that in the land of splits the curb appeal on ours is not so bad.

We have great land, a long, windy, paved driveway. Most importantly, we are in a great neighborhood. Location, location, location. When I first set out on my quest to find more on split level remodels, the one thing I saw over and over again was, "we didn't want a split, but it was in the perfect location." So when you have the perfect location, there has to be a way (cost effectively) to create the perfect house, right!?!

So lets look at the pros and cons of a split level, raised ranch, split entry. If you need to figure out what you actually have, I thought this was very comprehensive http://www.dakotacda.org/pdf/splitvisions.pdf

PRO's: Our house is spacious. We have 4 large bedrooms, 3 bathrooms (2 of which are large), and I love that we have two living rooms. We have a laundry room, so the piles upon piles of laundry my 3 kids create can hide from view. We have a beautiful 5 Bay window that lets in an incredible amount of light into our living room. We are also lucky that our basement level has really nice ceiling height (9ft), that I wish carried up to the main floor. We have a huge screened in porch attached in the back, which seems to be a pretty common add on that many splits have done in their early years. I also love our fireplace and wood stove, from my research I see this isn't always in all splits, but it is a great feature. Lastly, I like my laundry shoot :)

CON's:
INTERIOR:
BEDROOMS - All the bedrooms are together. In most splits the bedrooms are clustered to one side of the main floor. We are lucky enough to have one in the basement, but which kid do we send into the basement? Why I hate this? I hate sharing a wall with my kids. Right now it is okay cause they are little and many times I have to go into their rooms for nightmares etc. But, in the long term I know we do not want to be directly across from them in our bedrooms.

KITCHEN - It is small, dark, there is no counterspace. It is this tiny little room that does not align with the modern era of kitchens being the gathering space. The lack of counterspace is appauling, our first Christmas the kids and I needed to use the kitchen table as a floating island to do anything.

STORAGE - We are lucky to have a million closets in our house. Each bedroom has a closet, the upstairs hallway has 3 closets, and we have a closet as your enter from the garage. That said, there is no where to store stuff that is more appropriate for a basement or garage. Our garage fits both our cars, but barely, and with little room for storage. We have utilized under the deck, but it has meant every winter putting up tarps and struggling to keep them together through the rough New England winters. Not to mention it looks like hell.

BASEMENT - Its dark and its a basement. We have a living room, bedroom, laundry, and bath and although we have windows the laundry window is covered by the porch, the bathroom lacks a window and you just have the feeling of being in a basement. So 800 sq feet of our living space just has the basement feel. 

EXTERIOR:
ENTRY - There is no doubt, this is one of the most complained about aspect of any split. The entry looks last minute, or lacking in any design or style. Luckily ours has some great molding and a beautiful window that was easily spruced up with a little paint. But, it is still pushed back into the house leaving much to be desired.

ROOF LINE - It is boring and ugly and straight across. There is nothing drawing your attention away from the split or the recessed entryway.



So, with all that, what do you do about it? Well, if I had an extra $100K, I think I could feel confident to make any split something that I could love. But, sadly that is not my case.

The most common renovations I have found in my research focuses on the entryway. Adding a portico, or changing the roof line to draw your focus away from the fact that it is a split.

Here is my vision on our changed entry. I'd love to add a craftsman style portico and change the roof line over the living room. Plus the bonus of this is to add the garage and finish off the garage we currently have to add more space. This is an exterior I could definitely be happy with.

Photo credit: thisoldhouse.com

Interior-wise, the most common change is to take down walls where you can. Opening up the kitchen and the dining room and/or the kitchen/living space with a wall opening or half wall. Combining two small bedrooms to create one large master.

This is one area I am stuck. We have taken down the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. We have added a window to let in more light for the kitchen/dining and we are adding solar tubes to again increase the light in the kitchen.

 

The view of our new window from the kitchen

Our master bedroom is large, but I would maybe take the wall between the hall closet and our master bath out in order to increase the size of the master bath. But none of this solves the bedroom cluster dilemma. We are thinking of finishing the current garage and adding on like in the picture above, allowing us to move the kids bedrooms all downstairs and putting the office upstairs with a spare bedroom.

If we are able to do the exterior upgrades and finish the garage and make a new one, I think our house truly could be our dream house. Sadly, these next two phases put us well over the $100K in renovation costs. We are left to debate, is it worth it?


What are your reasons to love or hate your split?