Bungalow Roof

I recently received this question:

Dear Heather,

We recently purchased a bungalow and need to replace the roof. Do you have any suggestions on what would be historically accurate?

Thanks,
Stacy

We found remnants of our home's original roofing material in the attic. Our bungalow had a wood shingle roof that had been stained a dark red color. Although, some might find a wood roof impractical today due to cost. Many of the bungalows in our area with very old roofs still intact are either red or green asphalt shingles.

I found the book "Bungalow Colors: Exteriors" written by Robert Schweitzer extremely helpful when we replaced our roof. His approach takes the color of the roof into consideration as part of the color scheme, along with the exterior paint color. He makes the point that the roof is a prominent feature on many bungalows and should compliment the overall color scheme of the house.

Here are a few examples of roofs taken from historical materials:

Posted by heather at October 1, 2007 12:19 AM