I do like the windows. The columns and porch detail are obviously not period appropriate. I could see it going crafstman. Otherwise not sure.

There's someone posting in the Small House forum who recently built a house a lot like yours; He describes it as Acadian. It's in the Small Houses with Style thread. You can see pictures if you scroll down about halfway.

Here is a link that might be useful: Small Houses with Style

Poop, I can't see photobucket from here. I did go out on the general interwebs and look up Arcadians though.. from what I could gather about the style, that ain't it either ;) I guess i'll say that I have a Generic Midwest House with Pretty Windows. :p

I have some questions if you don't mind answering them. Is there a cellar, and if so, where is it accessed?

I had a little farmhouse I lived in before I moved to present home. It was built in 1890. The general shape of it looked very like the lines in your house, and I am suspecting your house has been added on to at least once and likely two or more times just by looking at the roof lines. I suspect your house at one time was a rectangle and then suspect a porch was enclosed and made part of the house and then another addition was put on.

In my little house, they made an half story upstairs and the house was so small, the steps were very narrow and steep. You could tell the kitchen had been a previous back porch, and the laundry room contained the floor access to the cellar where a trap door was and had been previously an outside entrance. It definately had limitations on how it could be renovated, but after it was, it was a precious little home. But my exterior was all wood clapboard still in good condition, so we painted it. I am not aware of any definate "style" house. It was just a very common plan for late 1900, early 20th century modest homes and often located in rural or semi rural areas.

Here's what I see:
a simple frame house with a wing that was intentional (not added later) - the windows match - and a porch with panache.
A house built by someone who knew the land and climate - it has wonderful large windows on the west and south sides to catch the winter sun.
It has a porch to protect from heat of the summer afternoon sun in the west. I think, from looking at the photographs, that the trees do the same: shade the house in the summer.
A house built by someone who wanted some style - those double-hung windows with their 4 vertical divided lights were quite fashionable before WWI and in your area might still have been in style in 1925. The big window with the smaller light above was very stylish about 1905, and would have had stained glass if you lived in a city.
The porch columns are what would have been on a bungalow. They are also called 'arts and crafts' and were not so popular after WWI as before.
The interior trim in the main rooms is very simple , but done with care. You can probably tell which wings are later by seeing where your baseboards and window and door casings are different from what is in the front room and the kitchen. The small rooms with the little windows I think are probably additions to the house when it became a duplex.

From my comments, I now wonder if your house might not be as old as 1915, or 1920. Where I live ( northeastern US) by the early 1920's, the late Victorian details (your windows, moulding and porch details) had been swept away, not to be used again until the 1990's when people once again appreciated Victorian sensibilities. Sometimes those details are considered 'Prairie' the world Frank Lloyd Wright came out of, and that was popular for longer in the mid-west.

I owned a house that started life as a rental in the 1920's. I found it looked best with simple early 1900's furniture, rugs and curtains. I found books and old magazines in thrift shops and flea markets to give me a better feel for the era and went with an 'Edwardian' tone although I would have preferred arts and crafts. The arts and crafts pieces I owned - pottery, linens - never felt like they belonged - my grandmother's embroidered tea towels looked right at home!

Congratulations on your first home. Wow its on a nice piece of land! Looks like you have some projects in store.

We also purchased a fixer and 5 years later it is a totally different place. I think that our house was relieved when we began stripping out all of the well meaning yet misguided "improvements." The drop ceiling, paneling, brown wall to wall carpeting, vinyl floors, 60's kitchen and bath are gone and the lovely bones of the house have been revealed! Yes it was hard, time consuming, and more expensive than we expected, and it felt like it would never end... but it was worth it!

Just take your time with the planing and the house will reveal itself to you. Meet your neighbors and find out what you can about your house and also see the inside of theirs.

In looking at your house it does seem a bit like a bungalow and the molded cement brick foundation and pillars look period. The top part of the porch seems unusual to me- the way that it joins to the roof. I would see about getting the white paint sandblasted off the pillars. They would look more like they match the foundation and tie into the house that way.

House with two equal-sized front rooms, each with an entry door and no center hall = "double pen house" an ancient and venerable folk form.
Casey

Thank you thank you!
One at a time:
Calliope- there is a cellar and you get to it from the kitchen. I believe that is in the original part of the house. It HAS been added on to at least twice- the horrible job of enclosing the back porch was the most recent addition. The cellar has an interior gutter system that's connected to a sump. There's these weird drain holes that come from out of the foundation though- very strange, and need to be checked.

jegr- you're right about taking the climate into consideration.. according to the previous owner, the porch and front of the house stay cool all day even in the nastiest heat. The living room/kitchen catch morning sun, and it's very pleasant. I can get away with really strong colors too ;) The previous owner said that someone mentioned to him that the house may have been an old train station. The office would have been on one side and the sleepover on the other. I have yet to confirm that theory though. Everything that i'm putting in the house right now is what I like to call "Early American Flea Market". ;) I don't have cool furniture.

Decodilly- Thanks for the encouragement.. i'm going to need it when it comes time to rip out the paneling. I think if all the crooked DIY weirdness is removed, it'll be a totally different house. For now, I'm painting it all so it's bearable.

sombreuil- thanks! I'll do some digging on that. That's exactly what it has.

I think the mystery has been solved! I looked up Double-Pen. We have a winner :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Double Pen houses in Indiana

Thanks for the update!

You might enjoy reading a previous post about root cellars: "please explain the hole under my house", posted by pieinsky on Nov. 18th.
I, in my spot in the US, learned a lot about some other places. Your basement may be similar to pieinsky's 'hole'.