New methods of framing homes with sawn, dimensional lumber and the invention of mass-produced nails meant that most people built wood-framed homes trimmed with decorative woodwork. Oriental rugs decorated the floors, and heavy drapery dripping with fringe festooned tall windows.īy the end of the century in settled regions of the United States, log homes were out of fashion. Ornate furniture topped with layers of silk and velvet and accessorized with bric-a-brac became the fashion. The mass-produced furnishings and accessories manufactured during the Industrial Revolution fed their hunger. In stark contrast to Shaker style, Americans at the end of the 1800s loved opulence. The Shakers also used color - typically red, blue, and chrome yellow - in their meetinghouses, homes, and furnishings. Bandboxes and woven baskets are the perfect accessories. Ladder-back chairs and rockers, trestle tables, and tall chests of drawers exude Shaker style. Reproductions enable all who enjoy clean lines and simple beauty to bring the Shaker look home. Their furniture, while not overly carved or turned, gains its beauty from simple form, color, and the beauty of wood grain.īecause the Shakers believed in celibacy, their numbers have diminished to just a handful today, increasing the scarcity and value of their work. The Shakers stripped away unnecessary ornamentation in their quest to create items that fulfilled specific purposes. Wooden pegs on walls provided a perch for the assorted items that even simple life requires, like chairs, hats, and tools. To remove clutter from living spaces, the Shakers perfected the craft of cabinetry. Although the Shakers' buildings were not made of logs, the style they created is well-suited for a home made of clean-lined logs or timber framing. As the religion gained converts, Shaker communities formed in New England, Kentucky, and Indiana.Īs part of their communal life, Shakers crafted furniture, baskets, and other items for sale. Hands to Workĭecades after the first Colonists settled in the Northeast, the Shakers, a religious sect that fled persecution in England, landed in New York state. That can-do attitude carried the pioneers to the West, where another log style blossomed. Their hands left behind their spirit, a lure for today's collector. In these Appalachian cabins, kerosene lamplight spilled out onto families who made everything for themselves, from food to rugs to pottery to music. Often porches were tucked under the eaves of a gable roof, and a breezeway, known as a "dogtrot," connected two smaller square log buildings and offered a shady spot. The shape of the Appalachian home was also simple. Here you'll find rocking chairs on shed-roofed porches, wooden beds layered with scrap quilts, and open stone hearths filled with cast-iron kettles for cooking. The Appalachian-style log cabin embodies American country. They also built furniture and wove textiles. South of New England in Appalachia, settlers built homes of squared logs. And while the New England settlers preferred timber framing to logs for their homes, squared, Appalachian-style logs with wide bands of chinking look just right with this style. The colors of these rooms can be cool, like Colonial blue, or warm, like oxblood red. The home's formal room may feature a gilded Federal-style mirror to reflect the light of a fire crackling in an open hearth. Inside an Early American home, a framed portrait may look down on a four-poster bed topped by a woven coverlet.
These homes have simple forms that include the symmetrical Colonial home, the classic Cape Cod house, and the saltbox. The shape of the house itself underlines Early American style.
Colonists would have brought some of these cherished pieces with them on their journeys to the New World. For many people, Early American Windsor chairs and pewter candlesticks will never go out of style.įar from the cluttered country look that engulfed the United States in the 1980s, the aesthetic of Early American is spare and dependent on pieces that typify fine woodworking. Today, we still celebrate these English, European, and Scandinavian ancestors with homes in Early American and Appalachian styles. Those who sailed from the British Isles and landed in New England built timber frame homes. Instead of creating walls of solid wood, they used their sparse trees more sparingly for the walls' structure and completed the walls with infill made of a plasterlike material. Residents of countries that had fewer trees, like England, built timbered homes.
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