Best Of 67+ Charming New Orleans Shotgun House Design Voted By The Construction Association

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Are you looking to bring some of the charm of the Big Easy to your home? Look no further than the iconic New Orleans Shotgun House Design. Beloved for its efficient use of space and unique style, the shotgun house has a rich history and legacy in the city and beyond. This article brings together some of the best New Orleans Shotgun House Designs to inspire you as you make your dream home become a reality.

New Orleans Shotgun Home Design

The New Orleans Shotgun Home Design is a classic style of architecture that is uniquely American and has a long and varied history. Originating in the 19th and early 20th centuries, these homes predominantly feature a series of narrow rooms which line up along the front view of the house, each one connecting to the next. What is interesting about the design is that it often does not have a single back wall, meaning that the house can remain very open and airy, allowing for maximum natural light to flow through the house. In more traditional designs, the homes are typically two or three stories tall, which can help them stand out from the rest of the row houses in the neighborhood. The style of the home is typically characterized by a low-pitched roof, large overhangs, and often, a wrap-around porch.

New Orleans Shotgun Home Design

Traditional New Orleans Shotgun Home Design

Perhaps the most iconic type of New Orleans Shotgun Home Design is the traditional version. This often has a deep red hue to the exterior of the house, making it stand out from the rest of the neighborhood. The most notable feature of this style is the wide and long roof which is often painted red as well. This roof serves to distinguish this classic style from the more modern and contemporary variations of the Shotgun Home design. In addition to the roof, the house also typically features a wrap-around porch which looks out onto the street, as well as a plethora of columns, shutters, and transom windows to add to the overall aesthetic of the house. The door is typically the focal point of the porch, and may feature decorative elements, such as stained glass or carved woodwork.

Traditional New Orleans Shotgun Home Design

Victorian Shotgun House Design

The Victorian Shotgun House Design is a popular variation of the New Orleans Shotgun style that is much more ornate and stylized in comparison. Often featuring intricate detailing on the façade such as elaborate bay windows, ornamental columns, and intricate shutters, this style of house was particularly popular in the late 19th century. This type of house also featured several other elements which distinguished it from the traditional New Orleans Shotgun design, such as wrap-around verandas, stained glass windows and doors, and decorative spire-like roof top structures. Victorian Shotgun Houses often adopted a more impressive architectural approach than many of the more traditional Shotgun designs, and this can be reflected in the house’s beautiful detailing.

Victorian Shotgun House Design

Cottage Shotgun House Design

The Cottage Shotgun House design is a slightly less ornate version of the traditional style of house that was popular around the same time as the Victorian Shotgun House Design. Often the cottage style Shotgun house was built as a smaller, more compact structure, with a low pitched roof and smaller porch. Instead of the ornate detailing of the Victorian style, these homes typically feature simple and plain accents, such as unadorned windows, columns, shutters, and doors. This style of house became popular at the turn of the century, and is still seen in many parts of the South today. And while the style did not adopt the same degree of architectural complexity as the Victorian Shotgun, it remains a popular and classic design.

Cottage Shotgun House Design

Modern Shotgun House Design

One of the more recent iterations of the New Orleans Shotgun House Design is the modern variant. While still retaining many of the basic elements of the original design, modern Shotgun Houses often feature a more contemporary and open floor plan, as well as modern building materials, such as steel and concrete. The modern design also often uses taller ceilings, larger windows, and wider rooms in order to open up the house and allow for more natural light to enter. This design also typically features contemporary accents, such as horizontal lines, low-slope roofs, and recessed doorways. In places where space limitations and budget concerns are a factor in house design, modern Shotgun Houses can be an attractive and viable option.

Modern Shotgun House Design

Spanish Colonial Shotgun House Design

Another popular variant of the Shotgun design is the Spanish Colonial Shotgun. This style of house typically features a low-pitched clay tile roof that stretches across the entire house, giving it an almost fortress-like appearance. Its walls are usually made up of a combination of brick and stucco, and the façade often utilizes elements of the Mission style of architecture, such as smooth rounded stucco, clay roof tiles, wooden corbels, curved beams, and a deep front porch. This style of house was particularly popular in areas that already had an established Spanish Colonial presence, such as in New Mexico or Arizona.

Spanish Colonial Shotgun House Design

Creole Cottage Shotgun House Design

The Creole Cottage Shotgun House Design is yet another adaptation of the classic New Orleans Shotgun Home Design. While it still features the same basic elements of the traditional style of house, the Creole version adds a number of decorative details that help it stand out from the rest. The exterior typically features expanded eaves, a shallower pitch on the roof, and more openings for exterior windows. Inside the house, features such as built-in furniture, decorative mantelpieces, and winding staircases are what make these houses truly unique. This style of house is usually considered to be a cross between the original Shotgun house design and the French Creole Cottage style.

Creole Cottage Shotgun House Design

Classic New Orleans Shotgun Home Design

The Classic New Orleans Shotgun Home Design is the original version of this American architectural style, and while it has changed and adapted over the years, the basic elements remain the same. These houses are typically two or three stories tall, with a low-pitched roof, large overhangs, and multiple porches. The doors and windows usually feature intricate woodwork, and the entire façade of the house is usually accented with columns, shutters, and pediments. Inside, the house has multiple narrow rooms that connect to each other, and the walls tend to be finished with decorative plaster or stucco, which was popular in the 19th century.

Classic New Orleans Shotgun Home Design

Historic New Orleans Shotgun Home Design

As one of the oldest styles of American architecture, the Historic New Orleans Shotgun Home Design has remained unchanged for centuries. While some adaptations have been made over time to modernize the features of the house, the basic structure of the house has remained largely the same. Typically, these Shotgun Houses were painted shades of white, but in more recent years the paint colors have been updated with shades of blue, green, or even yellow. These homes may also feature transom windows, intricate woodwork on the doorways, and a wide wrap-around porch. The Historic New Orleans Shotgun House style is often considered the most traditional version of this popular Southern architecture.

Historic New Orleans Shotgun Home Design

Unique Louisiana Shotgun House Design

The Unique Louisiana Shotgun House Design is a more modern representation of the traditional New Orleans Shotgun House. This style usually features an asymmetrical or purely abstract façade that is accented by multiple windows, doors, and small balconies. The roofs of these houses typically feature a much steeper pitch and more modern features such as skylights and wide overhangs. This style of house is not as common as the traditional Shotgun design, but it is becoming increasingly popular as more people look for unique and interesting home designs. While this type of house may not fit into the traditional architecture of a neighborhood, it still provides a unique and beautiful way to make a statement with one’s home.

Unique Louisiana Shotgun House Design

What Defines a New Orleans Shotgun House Design?

New Orleans Shotgun House Design The New Orleans Shotgun house is a style of house dating back to the 19th century wherein the house is one room wide, one room deep, and multiple rooms long. The story goes that the design was made to resemble a shotgun, and the design is a hallmark of the historic architecture of New Orleans.

Design and Style Features

New Orleans Shotgun House Design The design typically has two to five rooms, lined up side by side with no hallways or other areas that aren't a living space. The rooms are of equal size, with exterior walls that line up directly front to back. These rooms are served by a single door at the front of the house and a second door at the rear, which is often shared among bedrooms. The doors open directly onto the street uniformly, giving the shotgun house an aesthetic that reflects a sense of uniformity along the entire street. The Shotgun house is designed to maximize compactness and airflow, in order to take advantage of the nearly year-round temperate climate of New Orleans. The walls are usually designed to open up to the outside directly, with limited amounts of weatherproofing. The roofline is designed to help ventilate the space and keep it cool, and the whole effect is a house design that's economical but highly functional.

Materials Selection

New Orleans Shotgun House Design New Orleans Shotgun houses are typically focused on optimal air flow, as such, materials for the house are usually wood and light masonry materials such as clay or concrete. Often times, these shotgun houses are modified to incorporate stucco walls or shutters to not only give the house an even more traditional New Orleans aesthetic, but also to take advantage of the direct sunlight in order to provide more warmth in the cooler months. The traditional New Orleans Shotgun house design is a timeless piece of architecture that reflects both the functional and aesthetic aims of its 19th century creators. In an era of increasingly modern home designs, the Shotgun house remains a beautiful and highly functional piece of New Orleans architecture.

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