Home building was a community effort and quite a social event due to scarce labor. Folks helped each other and shared tools. The tools they used generally came from England and many of them resemble tools carpenters still use today
As colonists became more affluent, they built houses more like the middle-class houses they had known in England. Eventually, more elaborate houses were built as colonists climbed the social ladder and had the money for these elegant homes - many of which still exist.
Furniture was mostly home made unless one was wealthy enough to be able to import furniture from England. Early homes did not have clothes closets but used large, homemade chests or hung clothes on pegs. Early beds did not have mattresses - only leaves or reeds covered with a comforter. Later on feathers and rags came to be used as mattresses.
Rugs, curtains, sheets or mirrors were rare in 17th century homes. The fireplace was the center of family life and essential for heat and light. "In the evening the entire family gathered round the fire - the women and older girls spinning or sewing and, as life became less difficult, there was time to do more elaborate sewing, quilting and needlework. The men and boys spent their evenings mending tools or carving new ones. Not only did they make ax handles, shovels and plows (if they were farmers) but also broom sticks, butter paddles, plates, spoons, and cups for household use.
2) http://www.takus.com/architecture/1colonial.html
English Colonial
The first settlers on the eastern seaboard were from England. Although others followed particularly from France, Germany, and Scandinavia, the English prevailed in language, custom, and architecture.
The first residential buildings were Medieval in style because that is all the settlers knew. Houses in England, since at least the 13th century had been timber framed, because there was an abundance of oak. The timber frame was made from halved, or cleft, timbers rather than complete logs. The gaps between timbers were infilled with panels, saplings woven into flat mats and covered in clay, called "wattle and dob." Roofs were made of thatch. Colonist brought this method to America: a timber frame with a skin made of local materials, in New England, wood, and in Virginia, brick.
The first basic house, in the 1600s, was a one story two room (hall and parlor) house with a central chimney. This evolved into a two story, four room building. By 1700, the salt-box evolved with a shed-like addition on the back. By 1740, the shed had become a full story, or a four-on-four room house. This, with a central hall with stair case, is the basic plan outline. The standard Colonial design, with a symmetrical front -- with a central door and two windows on either side, and five windows across the second floor -- remains the most popular architectural plan in the United States today. It traveled west with the pioneers.
In New England, there was usually one chimney in the middle. In Virginia and the Southern colonies, there were often two chimneys -- one at either end of the house -- to direct the heat outwards. Today, a standard Colonial design has one chimney located conveniently to provide for the hearth in the living room and the furnace beneath it in the basement.
As settlers had began to think about aesthetics over basic shelter, and their houses were evolving from one and two room shelters, they looked to England for new ideas. England was ablaze with exciting architectural development. London had burned in 1666, and Christopher Wren was instrumental in its rebuilding. The style he and his predecessor, Indigo Jones, introduced is now called Baroque.
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