Bungalows are well-known & loved for their abundance of moldings- strips of wood that are used to cover transitional areas, such as those around doors or windows. Bringing the natural wood in, wood beautifies & warms our homes like no other material.
All the videos I have chosen to tell you about making the correct choices in bungalow moldings, feature Brent Hull. Carefully researching traditional woodworking methods & materials, Brent creates custom historic windows, doors, cabinetry, paneled walls, stairs, mantels, moldings. He is dedicated to imparting his knowledge of preservation in his seminars & videos. I kinda love him!
Often, bungalows have sadly been stripped of their interior woodwork. The task of figuring out how to replace it can be frustrating. Bungalows are simple & it is easy to want to go beyond the original, more simple profiles & elements.
In these videos, Brett explains the history of molding & explains what to use in your bungalow.
HE-E-ERE’S BRENT!
History of Crown Molding and 3 things to consider. (7:09)
Brent Hull
What about using crown molding in a bungalow? Brent has been doing some reading & he’ll tell you!
Moldings for an Arts and Crafts Home- Authentic details you need to understand.(
Brent Hull (12:00)
What is the proper molding for your bungalow?
How to Choose Good Moldings
Brent Hull (24:57)
Applying basic design principles to choosing your molding.
How and Why to Make Custom Moldings (5:52)
Brent Hull
Brent advises, “The value of custom made is the difference between good and great.”
I’ve been telling folks about appropriate bungalow molding for a long time & nobody has believed me. Now that Brent is saying it….
STAY IN THE BUNGALOW KNOW!!!
Sign up for our newsletter & receive our FREE E-book, 7 VITAL Things to Do Before You Hire a Contractor.
I always feel right at home when I enter a bungalow. Each feature greeting my eye combines with the others to create a charm that warms my heart & tingles my toes. This article, a Glossary of bungalow interior details explains the many parts of the whole that combine to make me feel this delicious way.
In the Glossary, I have entered all the fireplace terms under Fireplace & all the stair terminology under Stairs. I am not addressing window parts here. To view a window glossary of a walloping 27 terms, visit The Craftsman Blog.
I have numerous images for most terms on my Pinterest page, so, rather than providing images here, I will link to my Pinterest page. I encourage you to view the multiple images there. I also link to a few curated YouTube videos. The very bestest way to learn about bungalows is to read & look. (You are enthusiastically invited to follow my Pinterest & YouTube pages!)
Please alert me if I have missed defining any features that might be unknown to the novice bungalonian.
Base cabinet
A cabinet that sits on the floor & usually support the countertops. Original base cabinets in bungalow kitchens did not have toe-kicks, but ran flush to the floor.
Baseboard
A wide board that is used for hiding any unevenness in the transition where the wall meets the floor. Bungalow moldings are simple & are characterized by straight lines with flat profiles.
Bungalow baseboards were generally painted, other than in grand homes, where they were coated with a clear finish. In earlier times, moldings were made from one of two materials—wood or molded plaster.
Bay window
A window generally consisting of three wall segments. Two side wall segments are attached to the main wall plane of the home, project outward & adjoin a wall section parallel with the home’s main wall surface. Each wall section contains a window (or windows.)
Beadboard Paneling that features decorative beading & that is used typically on walls (as wainscoting) & ceilings, or on built-in or free-standing furniture. But what’s a bead? A bead is a rounded shape cut into the square square edge of the board. Beads can be simple round shapes, or more complex patterns.
Bearing Wall
Any wall that carries a structural load.
Board & batten
Board & batten is a type of wainscoting using wide boards (usually about a foot wide) overlayed with narrow wooden strips (the battens-usually about 1-4” wide) in an alternating pattern. Used mostly in bungalow dining rooms, the boards would have been stained & topped with a plate-rail supported by corbels.
Battans were also used without boards in between to dress up a room.
Box beam
Decorative ceiling beams, with no structural purpose. The beams are not solid timbers but rather boards rabbeted together, leaving a hollow space. They were available in many variations- size, intersection plans, wood species & type of finish & finish & details, but most were fairly simple. They could be made on site or, like much other millwork, ordered from a catalogue.
Breakfast nook
A small recessed area in a kitchen with built-in table & benches.
Buffet/sideboard
Usually built-in to a dining room or butler’s pantry, this piece of permanent furniture has a base cabinet, generally having drawers & doored shelving & a wall cabinet with glass-doored shelves. These pieces are wonderful for storage, especially in a smaller house with a tiny kitchen. They can be very simple or highly ornate. They are generally co-ordinated with the bookcase dividers. You can see many of them in the link in Built-ins below.
Built-ins
Millwork that is utilized as permanent furniture.
Butler’s pantry A butler’s pantry is a transitional space between the kitchen & the dining room. It is used for storage & food prep.
Casing
Pieces of wood trim surrounding a window or door.
Casement Window
A window that pivots on a side hinge much like a door with a handle to crank the window open.
Chair Rail
Traditionally used to protect the walls from getting damaged by chair backs, a chair rail is a molding that typically goes around the room’s perimeter at the chair back height.
Crown Molding
A decorative molding placed at the joint of a ceiling & wall surface. Check out these videos about the use of them in houses of different styles & periods.
Dentil A small, projecting rectangular block molding. As you can see here, their beauty is greatly enhanced by little pigs wearing hats.
Dropped Ceiling
A dropped ceiling is created by constructing a ceiling plane lower than the actual ceiling height. A dropped ceiling is sometimes used to save on saving heating costs in our high ceiling bungalows. They often conceal asbestos-impregnated (or not) “popcorn” or “acoustical tile” ceiling, or sometimes, bad plaster.
Chimney
The chimney starts at the top of the firebox & forms a tower that extends past the roofline to carry smoke up & away from the house. You can see the chimney on the outside of the house. Here are some extraordinary ones!
Flue
A duct for the smoke & waste gases produced by a fire which is lined with a heat & moisture resistant material to protect the chimney structure.
Firebox
The main component of the fireplace where the fire is built, or an insert is placed. It is lined with heat resistant firebricks.
Hearth
Located at the fireplace base, it usually extends from inside the firebox anywhere from 16 to 18 inches outside the firebox onto a raised base or it can be flush with the floor, protecting the flooring from heat & embers. It must be made from a non-combustible material.
Mantel
The decorative ledge placed over the firebox opening.
Surround
The area surrounding the firebox’s perimeter, typically ranging from 8 to 12 inches. It protects the home’s interior from the fireplace’s heat & must be non-combustible. The surround provides a wonderful opportunity to employ one of the most iconic Arts & Crafts materials, ceramic tile.
Fixtures
Any electrical, HVAC, or plumbing appliance or article that is attached to the structure. (e.g., sink, tub, water heater, furnace, etc.)
Frieze
A broad horizontal band of sculpted or painted decoration, especially on a wall near the ceiling or a horizontal paper strip mounted on a wall to give a similar effect. See some lovely examples here.
Inglenook
An inglenook, or chimney corner, is a large recess in the wall featuring a fireplace. This recess which usually houses the flue or chimney, extends wider than a standard chimney & creates a walk-in alcove. See some darling ones here!
The word comes from “ingle”, an old Scots word for a domestic fire and “nook” a spot within a larger space that offers some form of seclusion. They are not common but I managed to find a few on Pinterest for you to see.
Lites
Separated glass areas in a window, usually separated by some sort of grid pattern.
Millwork
As Gustav Stickley wrote a century ago, “no other treatment of the walls gives such a sense of friendliness, mellowness, & permanence as does a generous quantity of woodwork.”
All types of millwork can be viewed in Built-ins.
Molding
A strip of wood that is used to cover transitional areas, such as around doors or windows.
Picture rail
A horizontal piece of molding installed just below a ceiling. A hook is latched onto it & then a string is suspended from the hook that holds the picture.
Pillar
A post or newel that extends to the ceiling height.
Plinth Block
A decorative block of wood often used at the bottom of door casings where the baseboard meets the door.
Pocket Door
A space-saving door style that slides into the wall rather than swinging open into a room or hallway.
Portieres are curtains between rooms. In homes built before the electricity to run heating & cooling, these curtains allowed rooms to stay toasty from a fire in the fireplace or stove. Many of them are fine pieces of textile.
Profile
A shape that is applied to the edge of a piece of wood such as a door or window frame, exterior or interior trim or a window or door jamb.
Wainscoting
Merriam-Webster defines it as “a usually paneled wooden lining of an interior wall, a lining of an interior wall irrespective of material, and the lower three or four feet of an interior wall when finished differently from the remainder of the wall.”
It originally protected plaster walls from chairs bumping into the wall, & earlier, from riding spurs & scabbards.
So, board & battan is wainscoting, or, boards without the battan, just the plain, bare wall, or a papered wall. (Just make sure your guests check their swords at the door.) Beadboard, when used on walls is wainscoting.
Wall Cabinet
A wall cabinet is sometimes called an overhead cabinet. Wall cabinets are typically hung on the wall above a base cabinet.
TIP: Check out the glossary for bungalow exteriors here!
STAY IN THE BUNGALOW KNOW!!!
Sign up for our newsletter & receive our FREE E-book, 7 VITAL Things to Do Before You Hire a Contractor.
Few things are more at home in a bungalow than American art pottery. Its bright colors & luster bring cheer & light to a dark interior & add details that complement the simple lines of the more rustic Arts & Crafts furniture & Craftsman architectural details.
Anyone can collect art pottery. Mine was representative of the finest from the period, chipped & mended into affordability. There are plenty of imperfect pieces on the market & artfully arranged, you can emulate the most prestigious collection of any museum. (I won’t tell.)
Pottery can serve as an inspiration piece when you are starting from ground zero in decorating your home. Using the colors, the images, the shape, you can use them as a basis for choosing your furniture & your textiles.
LEARN HOW POTTERY CAN BE BEAUTIFUL IN YOUR BUNGALOW
American Art Pottery Secrets – Paul J. Katrich – 1 of 6(9:08)
Paul Katrich
Paul, himself a master potter, is passionate about historic pottery. This is the first of 6 videos in which he explains the origin & inspiration of Arts & Crafts pottery. He tells us about the aesthetic & technological developments that culminated in American A&C, then shows & tells us about the icons of the period.
I am not going to list every video in the full series. The parts are best viewed in order & when the first video is over, the second & those after will magically appear. You will experience some lovely examples of the American Movement!
THE IMPORTANCE OF WOMEN IN AMERICAN ART POTTERY
Women artists have been overlooked for centuries. By the end of the 19th Century, we began coming into our own. In addition to demanding to work, we were also clamoring for a place in the world. Recognition would come much later, but what we wanted was the opportunity to use our wits & talents to contribute to the human cause. For many women, gaining artistic skills meant that they had greater earning power & could feed their families.These videos tell of how the crafts, especially pottery allowed us to do this.
Overbeck Sisters’ Arts and Craft Pottery in Indiana – Fulfilling their creative potential (9:15)
Hoosier Woodcraft
Four sisters who believed that “borrowed art is bad art” & took inspiration from their own backyard.
This video is wonderful but plays so fast that the captions are difficult to read. I think they must have thought that it was too long & sped it up. I played it at 50% & enjoyed it very much!
Women, Art, and Social Change: The Newcomb Pottery Enterprise (1:32)
Gardiner Museum
An overview of the Smithsonian exhibition of ceramics. metalwork, textiles & images of the women at work.
Roger Ogden on Newcomb Pottery (2:31)
Craft in America
Roger Ogden, collector explains the femininity of New Orleans, the home of H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College (Tulane University’s former women’s college.)
Earth into Art — The Flowering of American Art Pottery (2:00)
Morse Museum
Lead by woman, America’s first success on the World’s art stage.
STAY IN THE BUNGALOW KNOW!!!
Sign up for our newsletter & receive our FREE E-book, 7 VITAL Things to Do Before You Hire a Contractor.
Character is defined as all the qualities & features that make a person, groups of people, & places different from all others. In architecture, a character defining feature is any element, including the overall shape of the building, its materials, craftsmanship, decorative details, the interior space & any feature of it, as well as the individual aspects of its site & environment.
These videos focus on the character defining features that are typical inside a historic bungalow. They are the visual clues that the house is a bungalow & they differentiate it from other types of houses. They are the elements of the interior, that make a bungalow, a bungalow.
WHAT THE HECK IS A BUNGALOW, ANYWAY? focuses on exteriors, but in these videos, we are stepping through the door. You will notice that all the features, in & out are are in harmony.
LET’S GO INSIDE A HISTORIC BUNGALOW- OR THREE!
Moldings for an Arts and Crafts Home- Authentic details you need to understand. (12:00)
Brent Hull
Brent Hull, master craftsman, shows us the millwork that gives the bungalow its charm.
It is made from flax. My favorite fabric, made from the same plant, Linum usitatissimun, is linen, cool & elegant. And expensive. I’m always a fan of expensive.
Another ingredient of lino, pine resin takes me back to my six year old self, a tiny desert cowgirl, visiting Northern Arizona for the first time. After a life of looking at nothing but sand & cactus, the miles of tall pine forest I saw out of the windows of our car, were so, so green & so beautiful. The smell of the pine trees was enchanting. We pulled over at a rest stop & amidst all this towering wonder appeared a speckled fawn. Little girl heaven!
I grew up walking on linoleum, its smooth, clean coolness a welcome relief to my tender feet after running barefoot outside in the blazing sun. But it was Jane Powell’s book, LINOLEUM, that tipped me over the edge!
Lino can be passed over because, being made of natural materials, it costs more than vinyl, but the 2 products in no way compare as far as quality. For wet, high traffic areas, it cannot be surpassed in utility, healthfullness or charm. If you should be unfamiliar with the material, you’ll enjoy learning about it from these videos. If you’re a fan of old linoleum, you’ll find them entertaining & you might even learn a little bit.
Linoleum flooring is cool, actually (6:34)
Vox
Well, yeah!
Forbo Flooring Systems – Making linoleum is like cooking with natural ingredients (4:23)
Forbo Flooring Systems
The art of making Marmoleum. A fun & informative video!
Preserving 100-Year-Old Linoleum! (0:45)
Tenement Museum
Watch conservators cleaning & moving a 9’x12’ linoleum carpet.
See my other great collections of bungalow videos here!
STAY IN THE BUNGALOW KNOW!!!
Sign up for our newsletter & receive our FREE E-book, 7 VITAL Things to Do Before You Hire a Contractor.
This article will cover residential illumination, with emphasis on bungalow lighting design basics. We’re going to look at types of lighting, as they could be applied to your unique home.
Many years ago, I did a survey of homeowners, seeking to understand what they considered to be their most important goals when decorating their homes. Soon after, a similar survey was conducted by the National Wood Flooring Association. Combining the results of these two surveys was wonderfully illuminating. (Pun intended.)
My survey results showed that people placed great value on beauty- highly prized as contributing to the quality of life, in the Arts & Crafts philosophy.
The second valued attribute was warmth, a visual manifestation of the human connection. We style our homes to be welcoming, to be safe havens of comfort & regeneration for our families & our friends. We want our homes to express us, to tell our individual stories. To help us connect.
The NWFA’s questioning uncovered the desire for design that is beautiful &, “evokes an emotional response.” Once again, the human factor, the wish to communicate, the desire to be heard & understood by others.
The warmth & beauty are built-in to the basic design our bungalows. No one (at least no one reading this article!) can deny their own, emotional response to the beautiful features of a historic bungalow.
So, how can we enhance the warmth, the emotion, the beauty in our homes? How do we make our living spaces express our individual voices more clearly & eloquently? How can our homes contribute more profoundly, more richly, to the lives of our beloved family members & our dear friends, in the simple design choices that we make?
Well, here’s how you can put a little more light in their lives!
AMBIENT LIGHTING IN YOUR BUNGALOW
The first to consider is general, or ambient (defined as existing or present on all sides: encompassing) lighting. This is the type that provides a general, uniform illumination for the entire area, allowing you to be oriented to the space & to move about safely. During the day, this is usually provided by windows.
Our bungalows tend to have deep porches & overhangs. We also often have large, mature trees which block the sun, so the illumination provided by our windows is not always bright. When many of our homes were built, we were not accustomed to the high wattage of today’s lighting & such illumination was sufficient. In fact, our houses were planned to be at their most attractive under the softer, more subtle glow of the lighting of the times. Window coverings typical to the period allowed this natural light in, providing layers of blockage for privacy & darkness.
Our fireplaces contribute to the ambient light. At one time, they would have provided a main source of visibility & warmth. The family would have crowded ’round after the sun set for warmth, comradery & entertainment, as well as illumination. (I cannot but compare a similar scene today- the family sitting around the big screen TV, in the cold glow of its blue light, each person mute & staring, some looking at their phones.)
The study of my Eagle Rock home, the Hare House had a small fireplace in addition to the main fireplace pictured above. The first resident, Alfred was both a minister, leading a congregation & an attorney with a thriving law practice in downtown Los Angeles. Though he had sisters who lived nearby, & both Alfred & Grace were very active in community affairs, they were childless & I imagine that, at times, she may have gotten lonely. I can easily picture Reverend Hare working at his desk there in the evening, perhaps with the added help of a gas lantern, to keep his dear Grace, company. Perhaps she knitted for one of her charities or aid groups?
TASK LIGHTING
Reading by the fire was a common pastime which we would find rather uncomfortable now. After our homes were wired for electricity, we eagerly employed lamps to read & write, to cook & wash dishes, to shave, to accomplish the many tasks inherent in daily living. I’m in hearty agreement! Should I need to read a set of tiny directions, or figure out what my cat has in his mouth, I want light & plenty of it.
Task lighting has different functions in various rooms. Probably most people don’t read in the living room these days, & for many, reading means looking at a lit screen, but some folks actually read print books & it’s handy to have light directed at it. Too bad that there’s no sheet music in this piano image because it’s such a perfect example of task lighting.
In the kitchen, task lighting is crucial for safety, hygiene & perfect caramelization. And for identifying which children are yours.
Let me be perfectly clear here about the use of can or recessed lights. Nope, no way, no how! IN BUNGALOW DETAILS: INTERIOR, Jane says,” DO NOT ALLOW RECESSED CAN LIGHTING INTO YOUR BUNGALOW!”
She obliviously felt that you needed to defend yourself from this type of lighting at all costs. Jane goes on to say, “There is nothing, NOTHING that screams ‘late twentieth century’ more than a recessed can light- I don’t care how many lighting designers tell you they are ‘unobtrusive…’
“There was no track lighting either, nor were there fancy Italian-design halogen lights suspended on wires.”
This is how we define the room. Against a dark background of wood, accent lighting creates atmosphere, forming multiple layers of depth. It draws the eye from one point of illumination to the next, create sculptural vignettes, enhancing the aesthetic & intimacy of the room.
Here we see a beautifully illuminated room. The lighting is layered- there is ambient lighting coming from the windows, complete with a cozy kitty, & table lamps which serve as task & accent lighting. You could easily read in the cushiony chairs beside them & they highlight the textile to the front, & the teddy on the window seat. Notice the signature acorn pulls of RAGSDALE, Mission Style Oak and Mica Lamps and Lighting, a modern master about whom you can read in Part 7.
The beauty of layering that it imparts a warm glow throughout the room. There are no abrupt changes that force your eye to readjust to different areas, yet, there is enough variety to keep it moving & interested.
This article is just the beginning! To become a master of bungalow lighting, keep reading!
Bungalows are well-known & loved for their abundance of moldings- strips of wood that are used to cover transitional areas, such as those around doors or windows. Bringing the natural wood in, wood beautifies & warms our homes like no other material.
I always feel right at home when I enter a bungalow. Each feature greeting my eye combines with the others to create a charm that warms my heart & tingles my toes. This article, a Glossary of bungalow interior details explains the many parts of the whole that combine to make me feel this delicious way.
Chimney 
Baluster/spindle
Few things are more at home in a bungalow than American art pottery. Its bright colors & luster bring cheer & light to a dark interior & add details that complement the simple lines of the more rustic Arts & Crafts furniture & Craftsman architectural details.
Character is defined as all the qualities & features that make a person, groups of people, & places different from all others. In architecture, a character defining feature is any element, including the overall shape of the building, its materials, craftsmanship, decorative details, the interior space & any feature of it, as well as the individual aspects of its site & environment.
What’s not to love about historic linoleum?
This article will cover residential illumination, with emphasis on bungalow lighting design basics. We’re going to look at types of lighting, as they could be applied to your unique home.
Our fireplaces contribute to the ambient light. At one time, they would have provided a main source of visibility & warmth. The family would have crowded ’round after the sun set for warmth, comradery & entertainment, as well as illumination. (I cannot but compare a similar scene today- the family sitting around the big screen TV, in the cold glow of its blue light, each person mute & staring, some looking at their phones.)
Reading by the fire was a common pastime which we would find rather uncomfortable now. After our homes were wired for electricity, we eagerly employed lamps to read & write, to cook & wash dishes, to shave, to accomplish the many tasks inherent in daily living. I’m in hearty agreement! Should I need to read a set of tiny directions, or figure out what my cat has in his mouth, I want light & plenty of it.
Let me be perfectly clear here about the use of can or recessed lights. Nope, no way, no how! IN 
Part 1,