The Victorian House

This guide combines historical information with design ideas and advice on how to decorate, renovate and maintain a vintage home.

A rich selection from diaries, letters, advice books, magazines, and paintings creates a rooms-by-room portrait of Victorian life--from childbirth in the master bedroom to separate gender domains in the drawing room and parlor.

Open this book and you'll soon find yourself immersed in the wonderful gingerbread world of Victorian architecture and interior design. From a nostalgic introduction by John Philip Sousa III to the charming original illustrations of Daniel Lewis, The Victorian House Coloring Book invites children and colorists to re-create the furnishings, color schemes, and rich decorations of a lovely Victorian home. Comprising a complete household tour, these beautifully authentic illustrations depict the exterior, attic, front hallway, parlor, library, dining room, kitchen, three bedrooms, bathroom (including a water closet), and basement. In addition, a delightful double-page spread shows the garden with a gazebo. Typical of Victorian-era house, which often combined several architectural styles, the house shown here blends a simple Italianate exterior with such Second Empire features as a mansard roof and dormer windows. Other styles often featured in such homes include Queen Anne and Romanesque revivals, Carpenter Gothic and Stick, and Eastlake. A well-researched and informative text by Kristin Helberg accompanies each illustration, commenting on furnishings and architectural details and providing insight into the historical background and everyday life of the era. Dollhouse buffs, who consistently prefer the Victorian style to all others, will welcome this handsome book, while designers and illustrators will be especially pleased that all the illustrations are royalty free.

For any house-proud owner of a Victorian property this book represents a unique and invaluable resource. Packed with information about Victorian architectural ideas, it includes a wealth of practical advice about the maintenance and conservation of Victorian homes. Part One provides a concise overview of the development of the Victorian house, the wide range of architectural styles that came in and out of fashion over the period, and the lifestyles of the original owners the houses were designed to accommodate. Throughout, the emphasis is on family houses of various sizes rather than the great houses of the aristocracy, which are discussed only in relation to their influence on contemporary builders and architects. Part Two discusses structures and materials, covering brickwork, stone, renders and stuccos, roofs, woodwork, windows and doors, ironwork, and conservatories. In each case there is comprehensive advice on symptoms of trouble, techniques for preservation and restoration, and the correct choice of materials. Part Three covers services—fireplaces and chimneys, lighting, kitchens and bathrooms—all subjects requiring particular sensitivity to achieve a satisfactory compromise between preserving the spirit of the original building and meeting modern standards of comfort and convenience. Part Four examines all aspects of interior decoration, including plasterwork, decorative tiles, paint colors and finishes, wall coverings, curtains and blinds, and floor coverings. The book is completed by lists of further reading, places to visit, and useful addresses, including those of specialist suppliers and contractors, and sources of more detailed information and advice.

A study of Britain's great nineteenth-century houses examines their architects, and the social, technological, and economic conditions that made the massive structures possible

A middle class home, circa 1850, of the sort that many people live in today, is the focus of Judith Flanders' book. The Victorian age is both recent and unimaginably distant. In the most prosperous and technologically advanced nation in the world, people carried slops up and down stairs; buried meat in fresh earth to prevent mould forming; wrung sheets out in boiling water with their bare hands. This drudgery was routinely performed by the parents of people still living, but the knowledge of it has passed as if it had never been. Running water, stoves, flush lavatories - even lavatory paper - arrived slowly throughout the century; and most were luxuries available only to the prosperous.

This magnificent reproduction of a rare sourcebook, originally designed for prospective homeowners, designers, and builders of the early-Victorian era includes twenty-one designs for private residences. First published more than a century-and-a-half ago (and highly reflective of Victorian eclecticism), the models range from a charming eight-room house in the English style for $1,025 to a spacious French villa, complete with a wraparound veranda, ten bedrooms, and a walk-in china closet—for $10,441! Additional homes include—among others—a cozy, Swiss-styled chalet; a Tudor cottage; splendid residences with Indian and Egyptian architectural accents; and a two-story home with Anglo-Grecian elements. All designs are accompanied by landscaping layouts, floor plans, elevations, and detailed cost estimates for materials and labor. Of value to students of architectural history, home restorers, preservationists and builders, this richly illustrated book will be a welcome addition to the libraries of readers interested in period architecture.

The English country house reached its apotheosis in the nineteenth century. Designed by the most eminent architects of the age, the houses were bigger, more elaborate and more lavishly furnished than ever before, becoming a byword throughout the world for luxury, technological innovation and convenience of plan. Michael Hall's new survey draws on the Country Life archive to present the most complete visual record yet published of the Victorian country house. Chronologically arranged to span the decades from the 1830s to the 1890s, the houses range from the High Gothic of Tyntesfield to Ferdinand Rothschild's flamboyantly French Waddesdon Manor and Philip Webb's Arts and Crafts interiors at Standen. Victorian houses have suffered more from sales and demolitions than houses from any other period. The Country Life images are the only record of great houses such as Wrest Park, Thoresby Hall and Hewell Grange in their heyday. Houses that have survived with their interiors intact but are little known to the public are also featured, such as Flintham Hall and the Earl of Harrowby's Sandon Hall. Here, too, are spectacular colour photographs of some of the most celebrated houses of the period, from A. W. N. Pugin's Scarisbrick Hall to J. D. Crace's astonishing interiors at Longleat. With over 150 superb photographs and a commentary by one of the world's leading authorities on the subject, this book provides an excellent overview of a major period in British architectural history. Michael Hall is an architectural historian and the Editor of Apollo magazine. A former Architectural Editor and Deputy Editor of Country Life, he is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, a trustee of Emery Walker's Arts and Crafts house and Chairman of the Victorian Society's activities committee. His books include The English Country House: From the Archives of Country Life, also published by Aurum.

Exquisitely detailed, exceptionally handsome designs for an enormous variety of attractive city dwellings, spacious suburban and country homes, charming "cottages" and other structures — all accompanied by perspective views and floor plans.