Jamestown Drive, Michigan City, Indiana

 

Near the Indiana shores of Lake Michigan is a home that looks like it could be in Canada. That's because the family room that steps down from the kitchen...

...looks a lot like this before shot in Canadian designer Sarah Richardson's "Retro Ranch Rental":

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Sarah showed us the steps to take to update this...

...to look like this:

But wait, there's more, because we could also follow her example in the dining area...

and give it a little Sarah style:

Or, we could give it this Sarah style, if we wanted to stay with the black and white color scheme:

That means that the kitchen would go from builder basic:

To boldly beautiful:

Here are a few more Sarah solutions:

The house was built in 2006. It has 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms in 2,961 square feet.

This overhead shot shows how close the house is to Lake Michigan. Canada is waayy off to the right.

One last design solution, but it's mine this time, instead of Sarah's.

I would make the front facade more dramatic, by losing the arched window and making the rectangular windows taller and wider. I'd also want to tie in the garage more to the overall design.

Even if this house isn't exactly in her neck of the woods, I have a feeling Sarah would approve. The listing is here.