A bungalow house is a style of home popular throughout the 20th century characterized by open floor plans, low-pitched roofs, and big front porches. This style of home is associated with the American Arts and Crafts movement of the early 20th century and examples are especially prevalent along the west coast. Bungalows typically have deep eaves with exposed rafters, decorative knee braces, built-in cabinetry, and dormers. You can draw your own bungalow house plan at home for fun.
Study Bungalow House Plans
Study the floor plans of existing bungalows. This will give you an idea of what architectural options are available and what details appeal most to you. Think about combining appealing features from several different homes to create your own ideal house. Amass pictures and plans of bungalows that you like to help you get inspiration.
Make a list of bungalow house features that you require. Write down how many bedrooms you need and things like whether you want a big kitchen. Remember that bungalows are small houses, so if you want one room to be especially large, you'll probably have to sacrifice space in another room. If you have a piece of land that you want to build a house on, you probably know exactly how many square feet of house you're allowed to build.
Preliminary Bungalow House Sketch
Make sketches of your dream bungalow with regular paper and a pencil. At this point, don't worry about whether you have the measurements correct or whether your drawings are to scale. Just draw out plans and ideas to help you get a better mental picture of your home. Draw several ideas, so that if some of them turn out to be impractical, you have other options. Imagine what it would be like to live in your house as you draw and think about things like where you want doors and windows.
Bungalow House Plans
Draw an outline of your floor plan on a sheet of graph paper. This drawing will be to scale, which means that a 1/4-inch square on the graph represents one square foot. The outline of the floor plan represents the outer walls of your house if you were looking on it from above and it had no roof.
Draw the rooms into your outline. Label each room. Bungalows usually have open floor plans, which means that your bungalow will probably have one big room that serves as the living and dining room. You can have a separate kitchen or you can have a kitchen that is open to the living space. You can have separate, enclosed bedrooms, or if you have a small bungalow you can also make a loft bed. If you plan to build a loft, that would be represented in a cross-section of your house and not in the floor plan. Don't forget to include a bathroom.
Draw all the doors and windows into your plan. While you're drawing, think about how you plan to walk through your house and use the space. For example, if you make the bathroom only accessible via the bedroom that means that whenever you have guests they will have to walk through your bedroom to get to the bathroom.
Add Details to Your Bungalow Home
Take your plan to a copy shop and have an employee blow it up to 18 by 24 inches. This is a standard size for house plans.
Draw the details of your bungalow onto your new, large plan. Draw in the kitchen cabinetry and appliances. Bungalows are distinguished from other small homes by their built-in features, so you'll also want to draw in cabinets, closets and fireplaces. Be sure to think about where you'll place your furniture when adding these last details.
Complete Your Bungalow Plans
After you add the details to your large bungalow house plans, they'll be complete. If you want to use your bungalow house plans to build an actual house, you'll need to take them to a professional architectural firm. This firm will add things like plumbing and electric details, and give your bungalow house plans the engineer's seal required for inspection.