Wondering what this room was for in a 1940 bungalow/cottage
Hi! We are under contract to buy a 1940 bungalow. The floor plan is a little unusual compared to most of the other homes I've seen in the area. I drew a rough (not to scale for sure) floor plan in MS Paint--it was the only thing I could think of to use and I've never used it before. Anyway, I was wondering what the room was used for. It does not close off to the living room but communicates with it via a large opening between the two rooms such that if we were to close it off with french doors, they would probably have to be custom made because of the size of the opening. So both rooms were clearly originally open to each other, but they are definitely separate rooms. As in most bungalows, the front door opens right into the living room.
Normally one of the rooms might be the dining room, but there is one of those already, and it has a china cabinet built in and is right off the kitchen, so it's definitely meant to be the dining room.
Maybe a parlor? Were those even being done by 1940? A library that was open to the living room?
Comments (10)
camlan
10 years agojakabedy
10 years agoRelated Discussions
beach cottage family room makeover: you're in charge
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10 years agoLots and lots of possibilities.
LOTS.
If there are a lot of windows, it could be a "sun room" or a sleeping porch, which were very, very common.
Bungalows became HUGELY popular (early 1910s) in direct response to the Germ Theory. Suddenly, we KNEW what was killing off our children: An invisible enemy that could be defeated with proper cleaning. The Victorian was too hard to keep "sterile" so the Bungalow Craze took off.
Sun rooms and sleeping porches were very popular in early 20th Century homes for the same reason.
Some rooms were also dedicated "radio rooms." No kidding.
And first-floor front bedrooms were also very popular.
My guess is that it was just a regular bedroom. As you see from the images below, it was not unusual for bedrooms to open right off the living room.
The "Oxford" (Aladdin Kit Homes) had a dedicated radio room!
The Bandon (Sears Kit House) had a "Dining Porch" just off the living room.
This house (American Homebuilders catalog) had a bedroom just off the living room, and I think that's what YOUR front room is.
Here's another house (from Aladdin) with two bedrooms just off the living room, and the different floorplans have the doors opening off the living room, or a small hallway. In a smaller house, having a bedroom open off the living room saves the space of another hallway.
In conclusion, I'm pretty confident that your front room was a "chamber" or a bedroom - even in 1940.
Rose
Here is a link that might be useful: Bungalows and the Germ Theory
southerncanuck
10 years agocalliope
10 years agolavender_lass
10 years agojmc01
10 years agoword_doc
10 years ago
Donna Taggart
last year
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