How to Change a Bungalow House Exterior to a Victorian Style

Replace the windows on your bungalow-style house. This is a good first step because the windows on the two houses are very different. The bungalow style is generally characterized by a single, large window in the front with smaller windows throughout. Take out the square and rectangular windows and replace them with ornate Victorian designs. These usually include pointed tops or arches. Victorian-styled windows often feature fairly ornate moldings around them. There is a good chance that this will be the most costly investment in your remodel.

Place carved supports under the eaves. Almost all bungalow types are typified by large sloping roofs that stick out several feet beyond the exterior wall. Many of the Queen Anne and Victorian styles have carved “eave supports” under their own large roof eaves; this might be an area where the bungalow actually lends itself to Victorian conversion. These will be fairly ornate, L-shaped wood supports that go under the eaves and anchor to the house. Many Victorian and Queen Anne variations have wood that looks like stone. Therefore, much of your “conversion” materials will be white or “marble”-colored wood. Even if you keep the original color of the house, the accents will almost invariably be “stone” white.

Add columns. This may seem gaudy, but the conversion here requires it. The columns are almost always made of wood and can be installed to support the entrance way. The bungalow design sometimes has a medium-sized front porch with an area of overhang sufficient to include two or three wood columns, again painted to resemble stone. Some bungalows already have some pillar structuring in their front. These will be replaced with Romanesque pillars.

Use lots of triangular pediments. The bungalow does not have lots of places for this, so you will have to invent them. The bungalow is about efficiency and simplicity. The Victorian is about showing intellectual and financial power and superiority. These are basically opposite approaches. The very simple rule here is that wherever the roof forms a triangle with the rest of the house, add an ornamental pediment -- the “busier” the better. If the bungalow is very simple, then you need to exaggerate the Victorian sensibility with your additions. If you only use a few Victorian-style additions on the bungalow in your “conversion,” then these few will have to be wildly curved and floral, almost ostentatious, in order to counteract the middle-class efficiency of the bungalow style.

Focus on the interplay of curves and lines. The bungalow is all about lines and is never about curves. Therefore, add, wherever even remotely applicable, decorations and wood carvings that have lots of floral curves. What you are looking for, at the simplest, is adding something, a window, decoration or even a painted design, that adds the feminine curve to the very masculine angles of the bungalow.