Styles and Periods
American Colonial Style
Colonial homes in North America were similar to 18th Century European Country houses.
This was due to the early settlers immigrating with their previous countries decoration ideas.
Their style was different in the fact that they simplified the look and made things more practical, honesty in design and simple lifestyles reflected these early settlers.
Rustic furniture, simple timber panelling, no clutter, plain unadorned walls and natural earthy colours are the distinguishable decoration features of the American Colonial Style.
The simplicity of it all created a light and airy interior with simple clean lines.
This was important, as most early colonial houses were often small with tiny windows and low ceilings.
These early houses often had whitewashed walls and sometimes stencils imitating borders, which were for the wealthier.
The grander colonial homes had painted lining papered walls, often with borders and garlands.
These usually were in the form of natural motifs of fruit and flowers.
These simple interiors provided a good backdrop for collections.
Ceramics were popular and often displayed on a high shelf around the room.
Quilting was a popular hobby and the finished works were often hung on the wall, used as cushion covers, bed covers and displayed with pride.
Original fabrics and hand painted furniture inspired the interior colours prevalent.
These were earthy tones, greens, browns, subtle blues and cool whites.
The early colonial furniture was originally made of softer timbers, pine, birch and maple, sometimes walnut and cherry.
It was of honest construction and design, stool seats, solid timber boards as table tops with square legs (peg) made from straight grained logs.
It was strong and functional. Later colonial furniture used mortise and tenon and dovetail joints, the cyma recta shapes, turned shapes and legs the design was more refined but still continued the honest construction.
