Do you have a favorite style?

[eclecticcottage]

I love the Bungalow Project, because I am a fan of the bungalow style. However I realized as I was looking for the next Project I seem to have a lot of "favorite" styles lol. Italianate, bungalow, gothic revival cottage, greek revival, lake cottage...a locally significant "style" which is usually greek revivalisque, the cobblestone. I like victorians like the queen anne but they tend to be too fussy for me (says the person that just named italianate lol). One of the styles I like the least (aside from 90% of new builds)nis the half cape of the 50's and 60's, and the rectangular boxy ranches of the same era.

So do you have a favorite?

[Lily left the valley]

I grew up near Cape May, NJ. My mom has a thing for Victorians that I sort of latched on to as a child. When I was young, I loved all the segmented rooms they had, and the details in and out. Over time, I've grown to be fond of bungalows, railcar apartments and shotguns, simple farm cottages, vacation cottages, Storybooks, English Cottages, and even had a time when long single floor MCM ranches (not splits) held a certain aura for me. Just this year, I found out about Carpenter Gothics which I now have a particular fondness for, and I think some of what we used to call "simple Vics" when I was a kid may have in fact been Carpenter Gothics. I like stone a lot more than I like brick, but brick can be beautiful too. I have a huge love of the diamond windows in Tudors, but I'm not as strongly pulled to that style in general. Anything with Stained Glass gets my attention.

I do enjoy certain aspects of some types of moderns in the austere and huge windows sense, as well as Prairie Bungalows too. I've never been overly fond of pretty much any Colonial, Spanish or most revival X styles, but love the details. Victorians have become the same for me--love the details, but not my heart's desire, and I suppose Italianates should get lumped in there as well. McMansions with their poor proportions and open concepted to deathness as well as any open concept notions in any style are probably the only types I outright dislike (this stems from studio apartments which I loathed after living in one). I like earth berm homes, in dirt or caves, but I don't know how I'd feel actually living in them. Cob homes capture my fancy, and when we thought about building our own home, it stayed on the maybe list a long while. I do like the stone bottomed Scandinavian turf homes, but don't know that I'd be able to maintain such.

With all styles except McMansions, I appreciate what they are, just the heart strings don't get the same tug. I still have a lot to learn about architecture in general. So there may be more surprises in store for my heart, just like Carpenter Gothics.

What I realized over the years is that what I like best is arts and crafts bungalows. The Baker Bungalow has some of that era in it despite its build age, and especially due to some hardware and fixtures, a peek at Deco as well. I very much enjoy the separations of private and public due to the layout and stories. Interestingly, it's the same feeling I used to have with the Victorians with all the various rooms for this or that. It also brings to mind how I liked that with Shotguns, you enter in the most public spaces, then gradually work your way to those that are more private.

Details are a funny thing for me. I love simple, but I also love interesting bits. It's one of the things I've had on my mind since I first saw the Baker Bungalow. It's fairly modest in detail for a bungalow, yet there's my crafter side wanting to breathe a bit more craft into it. Not sure what I'll decide in the long run, though.

[vvzz]

I love high italianates and second empire. Perfect combination of classic details and a little bit of awesome fluid lines in arched windows and trim.

[JRC]

I don't really have a favorite style. While I like all old houses built before WWII, it's easier for me to list the styles that are not my favorites. I'm not drawn to the revival and storybook styles like: Colonial, Tudor, or Spanish Colonial.

[Don M]

I like the Adam or Federal style homes. Colonial revivals are nice and simple Queen Anns with wrap around porches are also fun. The FLW Prairie style houses are also favorites.

[phil]

I appreciate seeing the Victorian mansions but I think I'd find owning one frustrating as there is just so much to maintain and preserve. I agree with Lily about the arts and crafts style. I guess craftsman style is a close relative. I love art deco objects, the furniture, the art, the creativity it inspired. post WW2 we had a real housing boom bu those ones seem for the most part less fashionable and smaller out of necessity. the 1950's and 60's homes around here are a good bargain as they were well made but they lacked the same character having lost the character in the roof lines and a lot of the uniqueness. out here we don't have a lot of pre 1800s anything so I can't really consider them as options. I think I like the simplicity of the way the craftsman style and in arts and crafts, how they used robustness and slight angles to produce really pleasing proportions without a lot of flowery clutter.

it drives me nuts how the mcmansions try to imitate the craftsman style but they always seem to cheapen it so much by using undersized lumber and omitting the details like high baseboards that it looses the whole intent of looking overbuilt and robust. To me that says all you can afford is crappy chinese made ikea junk so suck it up and yea every house on the street looks the same because we didn't even think you deserved a little different look. Remember your house number or you'll forget where you live but the contractor saved 49 cents.

[Wackyshack]

Victorian.... tower rooms, funky roof lines, roof crestings, chimney pots, and STAINED GLASS along with all those cookie and corbel and fretwork decorations.... and 8 color paint jobs, high ceilings, tin ceilings
.. oh yeah.....

My cottage doesn't match my dream Victorian....I love several styles under the general heading. When I went house hunting I was dreaming of anything like what is pictured below... In the end I could barely afford the Wackyshack.

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Screen Shot 2016-12-23 at 4.34.05 PM.png (446.56 KiB) Viewed 1076 times

[Sashguy]

One of my Customer's homes. I dearly love it.

[SouthernLady]

Asking me that question is like asking me to pick out a particular sweet at the old Dewey's bakery in downtown Winston-Salem (a local staple)...



Buuuuuttttt...

I find myself having the really big, warm-hearted fuzzy moments when I am sitting in a Colonial or a simpler-style Victorian (1860s, 1880s--I love either). I guess I would have to say that based on that, those would be my favorite styles, although I truly do love and admire all historical styles from the Colonial to Edwardian.

Just this past Friday night, I took a minor journey to have the annual Christmas get-together with my sister who lives out of state and some longtime friends. We've done this every year since graduating high school--some **ahem** years ago--and this is one of our favorite spots: Old Salem Tavern (http://thetaverninoldsalem.ws/). This is a tavern in the old sense. Delicious food, great simple historic atmosphere--it sets a nice pace for a quiet evening with friends.

I don't know what it is about those two particular eras with me. I think perhaps because they call back to a simpler time when almost everything was made by hand, people actually knew their neighbors... I suppose that's why a dear friend of mine described my love affair with old houses as my "Narnia". She said whenever she sees me step over a threshold into an old house, it's like I am transported back to that time period and it seems I always want to take as long as I can before I have to step back through the portal to the 21st Century.

I guess all of us here are guilty of that to some extent. After all, that's why we love our old houses. We're restoring our own "Narnia".

[Lily left the valley]

I envy you for having a real bakery nearby. It's something we've yet to find in this area.

I really like that idea of us all spending time through the wardrobe. Afterall, a lot of old homes didn't have closets anyhoo!