Following are some house types, focusing on the types often found in Washington, DC and its suburbs. Wikipedia offers a A longer list of house types that will make your head spin. Call me and I can show you examples of each.
Bungalow
Normally,a bunaglow is any simple, single-story house without any basement. But around here, we have basements.
In Britain and North America a bungalow today is a residential house, normally detached, which is either single story, or has a second story built into a sloping roof, usually with dormer windows (“one and a half stories”). Full vertical walls are therefore only seen on one story, at least on the front and rear elevations. Usually the houses are relatively small, especially from recent decades, though early examples may be large, in which case the term bungalow tends not to be used today.
Foursquare
The American Foursquare or American Four Square is an American house style popular from the mid-1890s to the late 1930s. It was plain, often incorporating handcrafted woodwork. Building materials included bricks and wood frames. The style features a basically square, boxy design, two-and-one-half stories high, usually with four large, boxy rooms to a floor, a center dormer, and a large front porch with wide stairs. The boxy shape provides a maximum amount of interior room space, to use a small city lot most efficiently. Other common features included a hipped roof, arched entries between common rooms, built-in cabinetry, and Craftsman-style woodwork.
It was tailored to relatively narrow lots, and was multi-story, allowing more square-footage on a smaller footprint. The American Foursquare style is occasionally revived in new developments, although its appeal is as a “traditional looking” style rather than a fully authentic one, often including modern two-car attached garages and other features absent in originals, and typically built on larger lots.
Farmhouse
Architectural styles vary, but very often a farmhouse is of Cape Cod design. In general styles vary from region to region, but more often the style is simplistic so to serve the needs (and the budget) of the owners.
This website offering farmhouse plans provides additional information.
Colonial
See Wikipedia for all the different styles of colonial, all of which originated in the East.
