Residential Design Styles

I will post a premier for a few residential design styles over the next few days. Understanding the evolution of home styles or architecture is a great place to base your education or start you new home search.
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New World Styles

New World StylesAs European settlers began colonizing North America, they began adapting their knowledge and building techniques to the "new world". While encountering different climates and raw materials, they incorporated the construction styles of the indigenous peoples which were tailored to these environments, thus developing new forms and styles.

PUEBLO OR ADOBE STYLE
American Southwest; from c.1050
Taking its cues from Native American and Spanish Colonial styles, chunky looking Pueblo style homes emerged around 1900 in California, but proved most popular in Arizona and New Mexico, where many original pueblo style home designs still survive.The style is characterized by flat roofs, parapet walls with round edges, earth-colored stucco or adobe-brick walls, straight-edge window frames, and roof beams that project through the wall. The interior typically features corner fireplaces, unpainted wood columns, and tile or brick floors.

COLONIAL STYLE
New England, Pennsylvania, New York, Midwest; c. 1600s - 1800s

America's colonial period encompassed a number of house plan styles, including Cape Cod, Saltbox, Dutch Colonial, English Colonial, Shaker Architecture, and French Colonial. However, when we refer to the Colonial style, we often are referring to a rectangular, symmetrical home with bedrooms on the second floor. The double-hung windows usually have many small, equally sized square panes.During the late 1800s and throughout the 20th century, builders borrowed ideas from Colonial home designs to create refined Colonial Revival homes with elegant central hallways and elaborate cornices. Unlike the original Colonial architecture, Colonial Revival homes are often sided in white clapboard and trimmed with black or green shutters.