what makes a cottage what makes a bungalow?

[renor27]

I have heard these two terms: cottage and bungalow used for small homes built in the 1930s and early 1940s and I do not know if there is a difference. Any one out there know?

[Dalexs]

From my home buying experience... about $200,000...

[Wild Root]

Well, the difference is this, one is a Bungalow, and the other is a Cottage. LOL

No, seriously there is a small difference between the two. A Cottage can be about the same size, in fact, size has very little to do with it. A Cottage has more of an English style with a thatched roof or shingled roof. Bungalows are a western styled Arts and Crafts home like these I have found on the web. Photos really help out in many ways. Bungalows were popping up in the early 1900’s to about the 1930’s.

Hope this helps.

Root.

This is a Cottage style.

[Wild Root]

Here is a California Bungalow.

[Andykev]

Ya but in the area I live in, Dalexus is right!

Those homes would list for $950K on the "Cottage", and the "Bungalow" would be about $700K +.........

[Wild Root]

Funny, in my town I see Victorians sell over a million and any Arts and Crafts homes are in the same boat. Cottages will sell high too. I guess if you want a nice old home you will be shelling out the clams any way you look at it. Well, in California that is.

Root.

[Brad Bowers]

Geesh! You could buy three or four bungalows for some of those prices in mid-continent states!

Brad

[jamespowers]

Originally posted by Brad Bowers
Geesh! You could buy three or four bungalows for some of those prices in mid-continent states!

Brad

And in some of those states they do not have an income tax and their property (and just about every other tax) is lower. LOL LOL Not to mention that there are far fewer nuts per square mile.

[Marlowe]

Here's my answer, but I'm just going by prejudice and am subject to correction: I think that a bungalow is a subset of the set "cottage." A bungalow is a cottage where the floor is raised up from ground level, creating a sub-area beneath of about 2 feet or more. I believe the style was taken from British houses built in rain-soaked Africa and India, allowing cottages to more easily survive floods, or at least wet ground. It also tends to insulate the houses if done properly, making them easier to cool in the summer.

I grew up in southern California, the Los Angeles area. I went to a school that had bungalow-style schoolrooms. (Anchorage St. Elementary between Washington and the Marina del Rey jetty on Venice Beach, for those of you who live out there.) Also, my father was a termite inspector there, and I went to work with him and got to see a lot of interesting houses of different types.

(That's one of the reasons I like Raymond Chandler's novels so much--he was great at capturing the mood and appearance of many of the old Los Angeles neighborhoods. I could recognize places he wrote about, even though I wasn't even born until about 40 years after he wrote about them.)

[Retro Grouch]

Originally posted by Brad Bowers
Geesh! You could buy three or four bungalows for some of those prices in mid-continent states!

Brad

Not in Colorado.

Just read American Bungalow magazine. They know everything. LOL

Tom

[Brad Bowers]

Yep, Tom, that's the sad thing about Colorado. I can't believe the house in which I grew up in the Denver area cost my folks $22,000 dollars by 1970! Still, it depends on where you live in the state. Pueblo is still remarkably affordable, and bungalows can be had for around $150,000. But, shhh, don't tell anyone until after I move back there!

Brad

[Retro Grouch]

My lips are sealed.

There are some places that haven't caught on, yet. It's just a matter of time, though. If/when I were to move somewheres else in CO it would be south or west.

I did real estate appraisals in Ohio for about three years. Moving to Colorado was quite an eye opener.

Tom

[Bargepole]

Words From THe Home Country (where they originated, I fear):

A cottage is a rural dwelling, usually detached, originally consisting of one lower room where farm workers ate and lived alongside the animals, and, generally, one upper room where they slept. Now it's just a little house, characterized, I suppose, by thick walls, small windows, low ceilings and wizened people in the terminal stages of malnutrition and rural lunacy, if you want to go for the full authenticity schmeer. There's a Romantic sensibility attached to the idea of the cottage (cf. Thomas Hardy Far From the Madding Crowd) but it's primarily a social thing: cottage-dwellers usually didn't own their cottages but had them on tied lease from their landlord. Now it means you have rural pretensions and (at least in England) a good job in the London financial sector.

A bungalow, on the other hand, is an Anglo-Indian word from the days of the Raj. It derives from Bangla, "of Bengal", and was used to mean a Bengali-style house, single-storied with a verandah running around it for sitting shaded from the intense heat and blazing sun which are such notable features of suburban England where the bungalow caught on. The crucial thing is that it's single-storeyed. So the majority of American houses, particularly in the west of the country, are, in English terms, bungalows. I remember an elderly English friend coming out to visit me when I was working at a Very Important Californian University and saying "What I don't understand is that for such a rich country, they all live in, my dear, bungalows." It's a low-status thing in the UK and unlike cottages (which have acquired a veneer of desirability), a bungalow is a bit... naff. (Alas there is no American English equivalent of that very useful word, but the discerning membership of this board will understand instinctively. (E.g. another example of naff would be a polyester-mix suit.))

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