Colonials are easily recognizable with their two to two-and-a-half-storied height, rectangular shape, gabled roofs, and central doorway that opens to a center hall and staircase.  Early Colonials were not painted, but the ones built in the eighteenth century, what was becoming the Georgian style, were—usually by using natural pigments such as ocher, which is a shade of yellow.  The front façade of the Colonial is almost always consistent with a strict spacing of windows.  There are usually three or five windows on the second level with a central door on the main level, and a portico if the house is sufficiently ornate.  The main door is prominently featured by means of design.  For practical reasons in the seventeenth century, the doors were made out of batten-and-board with over-scaled wrought-iron hinges—namely to keep the animals out.  By the early eighteenth century, the doors were more decorative, including small glazed transom panels above the door and glass sidelights on either side.  Later in the same century, lintels, flat or scrolled appeared over the front door instead.