What does the word bungalow mean for you? When I hear the word bungalow, it conjures up images of a summer camp I used to live next to while growing up in upstate. Pods of quaint single level, wide, simply designed houses that offer easy access to major living areas like the living room and dining area. Everything that was needed for day to day living was compacted into these relatively small style homes. The bungalows that come to mind for me had nice enclosed porches in the front of the house and the most appealing amenities were their perfectly sized yards with surrounding trees. The trees always seemed to offer just the right amount of shade at the right times during the warm seasons.
The term bungalow means slightly different things in other cultures and can offer different styles of luxury home plans as they relate to the bungalow style. In India bungalows of the past were smaller single story thatched roof houses but in modern times they are single story houses that can Terra Hill be very large. In South Africa the term means a small holiday house, a small log house or a wooden beach house. In Singapore and Malaysia bungalow refers to a detached, two to three story single family residential home on its own plot. It is interesting to note the slightly different variations in these different areas. In all of the different bungalow styles around the world, there is a common consistent theme associated to the bungalow. It is the fact that a bungalow is primarily single storied and offers easy access to the living amenities of its inhabitants.
In the United States, potential bungalow home owners have their choice of many styles of bungalow house plans to select from. One of the more popular plans to look at if you are in the market for building a new bungalow would be the craftsman bungalow house plans. These plans typically consisted of low-pitch roof lines with gabled roofs, deeply overhanging eaves, exposed rafters, and a front porch beneath an extension of the main roof. This design is said to be very "Arts and Crafty". This statement is very appropriate as this style bungalow became very popular during the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century from 1880 through 1910. The time period is sometimes referenced as the American Arts and Craft Movement.