May, 1908 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



i95 



doors are preferable to those of wood, for opening into the 

 court — in case a bungalow boasts such a luxury. There is 

 wide scope for originality in designing the front door, which 

 is, in many homes, an expression of the personality of the 

 builder. 



A bungalow is not necessarily small. It may have an im- 

 mense number of rooms connected in rambling fashion 

 around a court, so that one can get up an appetite for break- 

 fast by strolling through corridors and courtyard, for a 

 quarter of a mile or so — the space between bed-chamber 

 and dining-room. In one of these larger bungalows, the 

 rooms of which surround a patio, segregation of rooms to 

 be used during the day, and those to be used at night, should 

 be considered. Dining-room, living-room, den, music-room, 

 kitchen, maid's room, etc., ought to be connected, while 

 bedrooms and baths should take up the other side of the 

 house. 



The methods of interior finish are many. Beamed ceil- 

 ings and wainscoted walls are extensively used. Beams of 

 every dimension, from small planed strips that barely cover 

 the joints between the ceiling boards, to great rough logs 

 from the forest. If one admires the extreme in rustic, un- 

 planed beams, two by ten inches, can be hacked, hit and miss 

 with an ax, then scorched and blackened. To correspond 

 with such a ceiling, walls should have paneling of boards 

 and battens five or six feet high, finished at the top with a 

 six-inch plate rail. Above this, and extending to the ceiling, 

 either dark red or olive-green burlap adds a pleasing bit of 

 color. Such a room must — to be well mannered — have a 

 wide stone mantel with cozy grate, also two or three couches 

 made inviting with gay pillows, wide cushioned chairs and 

 foot stools. Plenty of windows with hangings of yellow or 

 red silk over sheer white swiss, a mirror or two set panel- 

 like into the walls with dark wood frames, a few oil paint- 

 ings — engravings are not enlivening enough — and a num- 

 ber of bright rugs, turn the bungalow living-room into a 

 haven of rest. 



For paneling interiors it is well to select boards with 

 showy grain, for after the wood stain is applied this grain 

 shows prominently, and if good, gives character to the rooms 

 in which it appears. In bungalows of lightest construction, 

 boards one inch in thickness, rough on the outside and planed 

 on the inside, are nailed vertically from floor to roof line, 

 the joints being covered both inside and out with battens. 

 This forms a rough paneled exterior and a finished interior. 

 In such a bungalow, which is designated as "box house" 

 style, studding is seldom used. The floor has its foundation, 

 and the roof is supported by the boards that form the walls. 

 Many house builders who can not quite acquire a liking for 

 what they call the "new-fangled backwoods" rusticity, taken 

 into their parlors, and yet who like bungalow exteriors, com- 

 promise by having their "insides" plastered and their ceil- 

 ings boxed. By doing this they are relieved of the fear of 

 being punctured by red-wood slivers when they hurriedly 

 turn a sharp corner when going from one room to another. 

 A striking result can be obtained by tinting the plaster a deep 

 cream, and having all the woodwork, including a ceiling 



beamed with two by tens, stained black. A beamed ceiling 

 makes a small room stuffy. Battens only are suitable for 

 covering ceiling joints in small apartments. 



It is well to have the attic floored and a gable window or 

 two put in the roof. A narrow stairway can lead up from 

 the kitchen or back hall. This attic room will afford a con- 

 venient place for storing trunks and boxes, and will give the 

 housewife a space for sewing, which, being out of the way, 

 need not be tidied up after each "setting." 



Like the modest violet, the bungalow is modest and re- 

 tiring. It does not parade the landscape in a gay coat of 

 paint, but is garbed to correspond in color with the deeper 

 greens and browns of woods and fields. Mission homes, 

 both large and small, wear either the natural gray of the 

 cement, or are tinted a delicate cream. They, too, agree and 

 blend with nature, and form an admirable background for 

 trailing vines and fragrant, rollicking roses. 



Most every man has his own idea of a home, and as scarce 

 two men have identical notions, there is startling variety of 

 architectural expressions, in fact they are acrobatic, twisting 

 and leading and turning back-somersaults, until even the 

 liveliest observer fails to get hold of any definite line. They 

 are just a mixed up jumble, but, like the kaleidoscope, this 

 jumble is often fascinating. 



If the "shades" of the original bungalows of India should 

 make a tour of California and see thousands of their repre- 

 sentatives scattered about cities, towns and fields, they might 

 justly show surprise, vindictiveness and perhaps horror, for 

 nowadays everything from a shanty to an elaborate and 

 expensive two-and-a-half-story house is specified as "bunga- 

 low." There is no more legal relationship between many 

 of these houses and the true bungalow than there is between 

 a zebra and a tadpole. It sounds nicely to call a shanty a 

 bungalow, just as it is more pleasing to call a rat a rodent 

 or a louse an anoplurous insect. 



The accompanying illustrations represent a few true bunga- 

 lows, also some pleasing types of cottage homes, in which, 

 as in the Christmas plum pudding, one finds a pleasing bit of 

 this and that, mixed and molded into a harmonious whole. 

 A cottage can accommodate itself comfortably anywhere, but 

 a bungalow, to be correct, should have bungalow environ- 

 ment. It is as out of place on a narrow city lot as is a 

 prairie dog on a church spire. It appears at its best when 

 nested on oak-strewn acres, or in quiet woodsy glens, where 

 sunlight filters through foliage, and some near-by stream 

 sings restful lullabys. But bungalows, like many other 

 things, have a faculty for getting out of place, and 

 their type is in greatest evidence on crowded residence streets, 

 where quite unabashed they cuddle among more stately im- 

 posing homes. The effect of this architectural mixture is a 

 trifle incongruous, and interferes somewhat with civic sym- 

 metry. Everyone, however, can not possess an oak grove or 

 a canon, and as all love the unpretentious modest bungalow 

 with its plain face and warm heart, it is built anvwhere and 

 everywhere, the owners erecting about it a wall of happiness 

 so wide and high they are unable to see discrepancies on 

 either side. 



