These illustrations from the National Plan Service courtesy Indiana Coal & Lumber companay are idealistic – picture perfect – to be sure. Even so, they all include great little ideas to scrutinize and consider replicating in our own little jewel box 40s 50s and 60s ranches, colonials, capes, splits and contemporaries.

Some tips from this model:

• Color scheme – I personally am a huge fan of gold as a paint color for ranch homes.
• Cupola – a great great addition to a postwar ranch, cape or colonial
• Lots of cool ironwork – connected to lighting
• Note the mix of horizontal and vertical wood, stone, and fretwork above the picture window
• The glass block wondow near the little pine tree, and the window on the green mudroom door are delightful
• Ooooh, and look at the planter with horizontal, minimalistic trellis.

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For this Sunday’s Inspiration, this excellent article on the modest middle class ranch home and the growing interest in preserving it. Hey, I think the sentiment also goes for the capes, colonials and split levels of the era, which also shared the unpretentious, egalitarian ethic of the ranch. A long read, but well worth it, in terms of better understanding the “back story” of our mutual obsession with the postwar period!

By Scott Timberg Times Staff Writer October 20, 2005

ITS low-slung frame sprawled across plains and valleys of a more open landscape. The single-story footprint didn’t boast, or point skyward like the self-assured colonial or Victorian. It offered a comfortable relationship with the climate and surrounding flora, and a democratic, open floor plan; it didn’t section off areas into servants quarters or announce visitors in grand foyers. It was modern without being Space Age, modest without being plain, evoking history without being mere nostalgia. If a style of residential architecture can symbolize an era, the ranch house became the iconic American home in the period from roughly 1945 to 1970: By some estimates, 70% of American homes built in the 25 years after World War II were ranch houses. Read the rest here.

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