Colonisation in 1788 marked the beginning of Australian residential housing styles. Up until the year 2000 these can be classified broadly into the following six architectural eras. The timeline above provides an illustration.

• Colonial 
• Victorian
• Federation
• Inter war
• Post war
• Late 20th Century

Each of these periods consist of a range of housing styles. As you will discover throughout this series of articles, no one style occupies a time period exclusively. The emergence and disappearance of different housing styles over time result in overlap. Where some styles may appear and run concurrently with others. Changes in trend also leads to the gradual expiry of other styles. Therefore it is quite possible to find, for example, a colonial style home built during the Victorian architectural era.