Exterior Home Design Styles | HomeExterior

Exterior Home Design Styles – If you are looking for exterior design for your home, you are in the right place, because the current my article will discuss about the most popular house exterior design.

Do you have difficulty in determining the exterior house design? If so, here are some exterior house style that is widely used by many people around the world.

Different Exterior Home Design Styles

1. Exterior Colonial Style Homes

This residential exterior design is considered one of the most popular in the history of the United States of America. Characteristics:

• One or more dormers
• Narrow clapboard siding (sometimes brick)
• Decorative crown over front door supported by pilasters or columns
• Massive chimney or chimneys
• Usually two or three stories with high-pitched roof
• Double-hung, multipane windows (usually in pairs) placed symmetrically on both sides of a central front door

2. Cape Cod Style Homes Exterior

English colonists were first build Cape Cod House when came to America in the late 1600s. Cape Cod Style Homes became very popular in the 1930s. Characteristics:

• Sided with wide clapboards, wood shingles, or brick
• Hardwood floors and center hall floor plan
• Steep roof with side gables, chimney usually on one end
• Multipaned, double-hung windows with decorative shutters
• One and a half stories, with one or more dormers on the half story
• Centered front door, most often plain, but sometimes with portico

3. Contemporary Style Home Exterior

Contemporary style homes are not defined by a style or single shape. One reliable clue is the presence of large, tall panes of glass. Characteristics:

• Cathedral ceilings and exposed beams, or flat roofs
• Odd, irregular shapes
• Open floor plan
• Natural siding materials such as wood or stone
• Plain, lack of ornamentation

4. Exterior Cottage Style Homes

Informal houses or small house perhaps called cottages, even though historically, cottages can be quite large. cottages often are sited in garden settings, with trellises and window boxes. Characteristics:

• Wood siding (often shingles)
• Meandering walkway to the front door
• Tall, peaked roof
• Surrounded by flowers and climbing plants
• Masonry chimney
• Large, multipane windows

5. Exterior Craftsman Style Homes

Craftsman style homes, an early 20th-century favorite, exemplifies the Crafts and Arts motion underlying humble forms and natural materials. Characteristics:

• Built-in cabinets, open floor plan, seating, and shelving
• Stone, wood, or stucco siding
• Low-pitched gable roof with opened rafters, decorative beams, or braces under the gables
• Double-hung windows frequently grouped in threes, with the upper sashes shared into three or two panes over a plain lower sash
• Organic colors and the use of natural materials such as stream rock
• Broad, welcoming porch supported by large columns

6. Farmhouse Exterior Styles

There are various farmhouse exterior styles, but this homely version could be thought of as a simplified Victorian. Characteristics:

• Tall windows
• Lap siding with trim and simple moldings
• Metal roof or either shingle
• Asymmetrical plan with gables and dormers
• Wrap around porch with several Victorian detailing

7. Federal Revival Style Architecture

Federal revival style architecture has its origins in England. It was favoured in America during the late 1700s and early 1800s, even though you will see Federalist details in some homes today. Characteristics:

• Palladian windows
• Centered front door oftentimes sheltered by a portico and topped with a fan-shaped transom light
• Recessed wall niches and oval rooms
• Large and graceful two-story brick with massive chimneys
• Dentil moldings in the cornice and fan-shaped or elliptical gable windows

8. Georgian Revival Style Homes

The Georgian revival style homes is often confused with Federal style. Georgian homes were popular in the United State from about 1715 to 1780 and are more angular than Federal style homes. Characteristics:

• Minimal roof overhang
• Centered front door, oftentimes with flattened columns on each side and a decorative crown above
• Wood or brick sided, square in shape and symmetrical
• Dormers or five double-hung windows across the front with 9 or 12 panes in each sash
• Medium-pitched roof with a chimney on each end

9. Greek Revival Style Homes

By the mid-1800s, Americans identify over with Grecian architecture than British. Greek Revival mansions became common, mainly in the South. Characteristics:

• Dentil moldings and a heavy cornice
• White clapboard exterior
• Shallow-pitched roof
• Front-facing columned portico, usually supporting a triangular pediment
• Square, with tall double-hung windows on each side
• Decorative pilasters

10. International Style Homes

The International style homes is often explained by the phrase, “less is more.” It uses industrial ingredients and underlines free-flowing spaces and lack of clutter. Characteristics:

• Tubular steel railings around decks and porches
• Simple geometric shapes, neutral palette
• Clad in white stucco or wood and rarely brick or mortar
• Flat roof and large expanses of glass, including glass block
• Constructed of steel and concrete, which enables overt interiors

11. Mediterranean Revival Style Homes

The inheritance of the mission churches built by Spanish colonists in America lives on, mainly in the Southwest. It’s also called mission or California mission. Characteristics:

• Terra-cotta pavers
• Balconies with black and wrought-iron railings
• Clad in adobe-like stucco
• Dark interiors and Deeply shaded porches
• Flat or low-pitch roof with clay tiles
• Oftentimes built around access to an inner courtyard

12. Ranch House Style Homes

Ranch houses became favourite in the 1950s and ’60s when land was inexpensive and families wanted an economical house in the suburbs. Characteristics:

• Plain and lack of ornamentation
• Long and low to the ground
• Single story, with a low-pitched gable end or hipped roof
• Attached garage and simple open floor plan
• Usually rectangular, but can be L- or U-shaped
• Sliding glass doors leading to a patio

13. Shingle Style Homes

This Victorian variation has its origins in the 19th century when it was built as a holiday home throughout the shores of New England. Characteristics:

• Lower portion may be clad in heavy stone
• Stone chimney
• Continuous shingle cladding on all exterior surfaces
• Wide porches, dormer windows, asymmetrical massing, half turrets
• Free form and rambling architecture

14. Southern Colonial Style Homes

Colonial style homes were as popular in the Southern colonies as the North, but the Southern version have the chimneys at the ends instead of the center. Characteristics:

• Tall foundation walls to protect against moisture damage
• Steeply pitched gable roof
• Multipane, tall, double-hung windows
• Wide, welcoming front porch
• Symmetrical in shape, with centered front door
• Narrow plan and often only one room deep

15. Spanish Colonial Style Homes

Spanish colonial style homes also known as Southwestern style, this style goes back to the early Spanish influence in the southwestern United States. Characteristics:

• Low and flat roof
• Small windows
• Massive masonry walls made of rough-cut stone blocks, or wood-frame walls covered with stucco
• Muted earth tones of red clay or ochre on exterior
• Large and ornate wooden doors

16. Tudor Style Homes

Tudor style homes seem reminiscent of childhood fairy-tale castles. They became popular in the United State. in the 1920s and ’30s, then again in the ’70s and ’80s. Characteristics:

• Larger Tudors feature wood and stucco half-timbering
• Brick and stucco cladding, combined with stone trim and door surrounds
• Steeply pitched roofs with wide gables and massive chimneys
• Tall, narrow and casement windows with multiple panes

17. Victorian Style Homes

Even though there are many 19th-century Victorian architectural styles, the one that usually comes to mind is Queen Anne. Characteristics:

• Tall and narrow windows
• Combinations of up to eight exterior colors on the same house (hence the term “painted lady”)
• Steep gable roofs
• Turned columns, porches, and turrets
• Decorative wooden brackets, clapboard siding and patterned shingles
• Lacy ornamental woodwork (gingerbread)

Accordingly my article about exterior home design styles and i hope useful for you. Thank You.