What is a "traditional" style home?

A cave.

A traditional home evokes images of understated elegance and offers the warmth and classic comfort many remember from childhood homes. Traditional homes often mix specific styles, such as classic, colonial, Victorian and Tudor. In general, traditional homes have conservative color palettes, rich wood tones, ornate decorative details and classic prints, such as florals, plaids and stripes. Think.blending past decor with modern amenities and comforts.

Detached, single family dwelling with a mixture of design elements that prohibit classifying it as a ‘style’, such as Tudor.

I think of wood trim/moldings, wood floors, maybe a fireplace.

I looked for “traditional style home” in Google images. The majority of them had multiple floors roof lines. Traditional style home” could mean a lot of things.

Vague. I think of it as anything other than “Contemporary.”

I grew up with Early American, which was all the rage in those halcyon years, and by the time I moved away from home I was pretty sick of it. Today my “style” is Comtemporary Hodgepodge, a few treasured pieces of which—no big surprise—came from the home I moved away from.

Geez @Cruiser! As I was reading your post I could hear the dude who narrates “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” reading it to me in my head!

Gosh. That may be culturally determined. When I think of a “traditional house,” I think of a farm house.

I think it is the word “style” that throws me. I see no consistent set of features that can be defined by the word.

‘Course, “traditional” has its problems too as @Dutchess_III points out. Being defined as In accordance with tradition doesn’t really tell you much. By my way of thinking that which is traditional on the West Coast is not what is traditional in the Mid West nor East Coast.

@Dutchess_III IMHO traditional homes are typically blue collar homes of any shape, size and design that evokes a ‘Leave It to Beaver’ family living that leaves up to the wife to choose the color of the Kitchen-Aide blender they proudly display on their just polished linoleum counter top.

I’d describe “traditional” as timeless and classic. Something traditional can survive the test of time and never looks old and dated. When people go for trends and fads, their choices become passé rather quickly.

Some homes have traditional cupboards and cabinets that never need to be replaced. They were built with quality materials, and they look as nice now as they did in 1920, 1950, 1980, etc. Other homes went with the 1960s “mod” look, which became a silly time capsule, to be replaced by a1970s orange-and-yellow theme, only to be torn out for something millennial.

Most of the homes I see around here, pre1995ish seem to be more on the line of a ranch house. Those made after that time seem to be more like glorified Salt Boxes, they look to me like some big box with windows slapped into them, sometimes there is so little trim or garnishment that it looked like an afterthought added on at the last minute, with no yard anywhere, and stacked so close together it is more of an alley between the houses than a side yard.

And this recent trend, of mixing stone and brick siding….people are going to regret that. It’s a fad. To me it looks like the house has some sort of disease. The rock appearing suddenly in brick looks like a pustule or something.

Around us the recent trend is “gables” (article with pictures here).

To me a traditional home is like the one I grew up in – a turn of the century brick home.
Mine didn’t look exactly like this one ..this one looks newer. In any case, that’s my idea of what a “traditional” home looks like, but perhaps one’s idea of what’s a traditional home is related to where you live as a child.

I don’t see it as meaning “Cape Cod, Country French, Colonial, Victorian, Traditional…”, but rather “Traditional, Duplex, Condo…”. More type of dwelling in the absence of a predominant style.

“Traditional” is used as a broad adjective to describe the house in the absence of a more precise one, such as “Cape Cod”.

Perhaps traditional refers to the construction technique used to build a house. Wood frame and Bricks. Non-traditional might be something like the Xanadu house at the Dells which was Urethane foam sprayed over an inflated bladder. There are houses that are shipped to third world countries that are similar that are bladders that are inflated and sprayed that are covered with a concrete like material. Mid-Century Modern houses in the US were non-traditional in that they had very large unsupported spans over peripheral supports, not unlike a modern pole barn. They made use of steel beams for their strength and blocks for torsional stability.