Whether it's new construction or something much older, a Victorian-style house can be a haven for both history and a modern family. Victorian houses are detailed, ornate, stately and inviting, designed for formal and informal living in a more polite time.
Floor Plans
Large Victorian homes were divided into two parts: the formal living space, where the family could entertain others and receive guests, and informal living space, where the family could be "at home" by themselves. Kitchens always came with separate pantries and china cabinets, and most Victorian houses featured a separate formal dining room outside of the kitchen. Houses were designed with the best access to daylight in mind, and many featured large, wraparound porches, first-floor wings, castle-like turrets and other decorative details. Larger homes, or homes for the higher class, had a front, "formal" staircase as well as an informal staircase at the back of the house used by the servants. Likewise, there were both informal and formal entrances.
Even smaller houses were designed with the formal-informal divide in mind. An 1886 cottage designed by C.N. Cornell, of Alpena, Mich. featured a parlor for entertaining, a bedroom on the first floor and a kitchen that, while it connected well with the rest of the house, was out of the way. The kitchen also featured a china cabinet and a pantry, and each room had a fireplace with access to a chimney.
Details
Victorian homes often featured tin ceilings, which were originally installed as fire retardants as well as a gorgeous interior decoration. Modern designers can replicate a Victorian home's tin ceilings by using painted aluminum-alloy tiles and installing them by nailing building plywood to the ceiling and then nailing the "tin" ceiling to the wood. Hardwood floors are also a necessity in Victorian design.
Victorians loved painted wooden details such as crown molding, cornices and embossed wood carvings. They would often install ornate wall panels, door casings, and ceiling centerpieces from which hung chandeliers. According to San Francisco Victoriana, a company that specializes in Victorian remodeling, stairs were often carved and round, with specially made handrails and newel post caps. Victorians used molding and wainscotting at the top, bottom and middle of walls. Other cornerstones of Victorian decor include pocket doors and stained-glass windows.
A Victorian home is not complete without a vibrant exterior color scheme; San Francisco's "painted ladies," for example, often have three or more colors. Many use yellows, blues, greens and other colors to highlight the architecture and details of the house.
Furniture
Victorian homes were furnished lavishly, and the furniture in them was often as ornate and decorated as the houses themselves. According to Victorian furniture collector John Werry, Victorian style isn't monolithic; it is divided into periods of time that include Renaissance Revival, Rococo and Eastlake styles.
Although there were mass-produced pieces at the time, most Victorians loved and valued excellent craftsmanship, as well as "very showy, skillfully made pieces, lots of inlay and the use of ormolu and the mix of ebonized and non-ebonized woods, and the addition of plaques, some of which are bronze," Werry said.
Among other particular details to Victorian furniture and Victorian house design are arches, trefoils and spires for Gothic Revival pieces; laminated rosewood naturalistic flora, fruit and scrolling for the Rococo period; and marquetry, inlay and veneering on Eastlake furniture.
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