I would think a home built in 1914 has wood floors - do you know? If it does, consider refinishing them. If I were in the market to buy a home and saw one of that vintage with carpeting, the first thing I'd do is pull it back and look for hardwood floors before making an offer.

It has soft wood floors not hard wood floors. When I lived there they were painted. I liked them but they are not the kind you can sand down and refinish like oak.

It depends who you think your market is. If you are just selling to someone who wants a small, cheap house, go ahead and put down carpet.

However, if you are trying to appeal to the people who like the bungalow style, do as little to modernize it as possible. Many bungalow owners would rather restore it close to the original condition than bring it up to date. Especially do not paint any wood that still has the original finish. A true bungalow fan is going to strip the paint off the floors (yes even if they are softwood) and put area rugs down, and remove any vinyl out of the kitchen to put authentic linoleum on the floor there.

It it is in really bad shape I would clean it, repair anything that is broken, paint the walls, and leave the original windows if they are still there.

Rosefolly

Thanks Rosefolly. I am afraid the combination of condition and neighborhood means the second solution. Any ideas about the tiny kitchen and bath. I am going to put a non period vanity of some kind in the bathroom just for practicality. THe kitchen still has one original floor to ceiling cabinet. What should the counter on that look like? It's all been painted a million times. What look would you go for in counter, cabinets and probably vinyl flooring?

I am picturing maybe a single man or a small family in the house.

"I am going to put a non period vanity of some kind in the bathroom just for practicality."

Ugh. Please don't. We have 3 bathrooms in our 1964 house. The previous owners left all of the original cabinetry (painting it instead of replacing) except the guest bath, in which they installed a non-period appropriate 36" vanity. While the other cabinets will eventually be replaced with something else appropriate, the only bathroom that I'm really itching to tear apart is ... the one with the tacky inappropriate 1990s vanity. YUCK.

I would do as little as possible to 'update' from the original. Just paint and repair what is broken.

You might take down the cabinet doors, strip the hardware (search online for instructions my son does this easily in an old crock pot) sand the cabinets and doors lightly, prime, paint and put them up again. For the countertop, it most likely was linoleum with a metal trim originally. If you have the originals, save them if you don't want to restore and put in some ikea wood countertops.

So that's pretty much my recommendation, refresh with Ikea anything you can't just clean and leave alone but save anything you do remove for the next owner.

Hmmm...now that I think of it, you just described my MIL's ittle bungalow house which we updated a few years ago after years of abusive rental. The only difference is that she had all oak floors which we had refinished.

She did the cabinets as I stated earlier, and put in a black vinyl floor that looks very sharp. She bought a new simple stove and refrigerator and left the plain formica countertop. Its a very, very small kitchen so she added a freestanding stainless shelving unit.

In the bathroom, she replaced the sink with one of these that has a pedestal sink like top but a very shallow base cabinet so that the sink extends out past the cabinet to maximize floor space. She put home depot heavy duty stone look vinyl squares on the floor in a brown/beige pattern and painted the walls a really nice sage green. New shower curtain.

Had the whole house painted nicely, white trim against classic subdued colors. That's all it really needed.

Besides the cosmetic issues, if it's been any great length of time, you might want to consider having the foundation, structural, mechanicals as well as trouble shooting areas such as the exterior checked out by a reputable licensed home inspector.

I live in a small bungalow and I definitely would not put a vanity in the bathroom - ideally just get a wall sink or a pedestal as the 2nd choice. There is no room for a box vanity.

I would keep as much of the original kitchen as possible. I'd put a Marmoleum ( not vinyl) floor.

Since you're basically looking to sell this house, I'd do as little to it as possible. Keep as many original features as you can. Don't mess the home up by trying to make it something that it's not.

I agree about the sink. There are pedestal sinks with an appropriately period look that are moderately priced, and they certainly take up less room than even a small vanity. If you have a choice, and there are other old fixtures in there, soft white will match better than bright white, which was not being done back in those days.

Rosefolly

I should have explained that there are no original fixtures in the bathroom or kitchen except for the cabinet on an end wall in the tiny kitchen. It was all redone in about 25 years ago and has been pretty well trashed by tenants.

Since this house has only one small bathroom, do you really think tenants or a prospective buyer would want a pedestal sink ? What would they do for storage in the bathroom?

Ideas on paint colors throughout? Cabinet and countertop (tiny area) in kitchen? This will be considered low end housing when it is done no matter what I do. This is a very small house in a modest neighborhood in a small city where there never has been a housing boom. It will most likely be purchased as economical home for small family. Even so, I would like to make it cheerful and attractive as best I can within the budget. This house will sell very cheaply under 50 k no matter what I do , I must keep renovations very reasonable. Thanks for your ideas. I am reading them all.

Sarah, I do understand that you don't want to put a lot of money in this project when you won't see that much return. Having said that, there are a lot of people who don't have much money who are happy to buy an inexpensive house, but who have good taste. A few of them may even be bungalow fans. Take a look in your local public library and see if you can find the books Bungalow Kitchens or Bungalow Bathrooms by Jane Powell. She is the real expert on both accurate and pretty close but modern adaptations of bungalows. If you skim through, or even just look at the pictures, you'll get a good feel for what will look right in these houses. Now you are not doing the restoration yourself, I understand. But these will give you a good idea of what you can do to make the house ready to sell without getting in the way of what a future owner might want to do.

Best of luck to you in your project, and a profitable sale.

Rosefolly

You might want to consider padding your budget in the event that the buyer requests a home inspection and surprises crop up concerning structural,mechanical,or any other hidden issue despite the cosmetic expenses.

Good point Rosefolly. I will look for those books. Maybe I can do some things that are 'in the spirit' of the bungalow and yet practical both to live in and pay for and this might expand the potential buyer base. Meanwhile, if you have any ideas from experience to offer or can point to any pictures I would love to hear or see them.

I will do whatever is required regarding the structure, Sierraeast. Hopefully the roof but you never know.

I happened upon this site while looking for ideas to remodel my bungalow. Our floor plans are EXACTLY THE SAME!

Speaking of the sink in the bathroom, DO NOT PUT A PEDESTAL IN! I don't care how modern they look, they are not functional in a house w/o a linen cabinet or shelves. We have absolutly NO storage in the bathroom and that sink stores so much of our stuff you can't put in a medicine cabinet. The toilet is too close to the wall and edge of sink to put one of those shelves that stand on the floor and go behind and above the toilet.

One suggestion i'd have for the kitchen counters is go to a supplier of remodeling material and see if they have a surplus section. If it's anything like my kitchen we only have 10 feet of counter space and they have "damaged freight" for $5 bucks a foot or left over pieces from a huge nice kitchen. We ended up getting a top of the line 12 foot piece that the edge was damaged on and cut it to fit, still haven't installed it but it's there.

I have to disagree with Lynsee. Our 1908 bugalow had a vanity in it, which I ripped out immediately with some cost to the plaster walls. The other posters are right - keep it as much in the tone of the original dwelling as possible. It doesn't matter that the stuff that is in there is not period; it would be better ro replace with period looking pieces. For our bathroom, I found a stand alone cabinet from Target that I put in the bathroom and a period medicine cabinet. I have plenty of storage. Our floors are also soft wood that has been sanded and clear coated. They are beautiful and I would NEVER cover them up with carpet. In the kitchen, I sanded down the cabinets, painted them and added period looking hardware. We also tiled the counters. The total costs was less than $500. So if you want to get the most out of this home, keep or add back the period details that give it a sense of history, some character and a reason for some one to buy it.

Here is a picture of my 100 year old kitchen. Diane

Thanks for the ideas!

Roof color? I am thinking black.

Our bathroom supplies are stored in 2 places - the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and a cabinet in another room. We walk about 10 steps to the stand alone cabinet. Roof color - what color is the exterior of the house? I wouldn't go with solid black - I think it will look like an asphalt parking lot. Red or green are traditional colors, too, but I think it depends on the color of the home.

I grew up in a home built about 1900. We had the pedistal sink in the bathroom and the little white hexagonal tiles on the floor with blue hexagonals in the border. The sink area storage was a very large, wood and mirror medicine cabinet above the sink. I am sure it was made on site for that house. It also had a built in corner cabinet with deep shelves for towels and other needs, and the bottom of the cabinet was a door to a laundry chute which sent the laundry to the basement.

Thanks everyone, I am still reading.