A formal garden accented with a lush, well-tended lawn becomes a place for pets and people to play and entertain.

The Victorians thought of their gardens as outdoor parlors and used them for both entertaining and impressing guests. A Victorian garden usually contained a fine blade grass for the lawn where they played lawn games, including croquet and lawn tennis; hence, Patty planted the grassy areas and marked property borders. Also predominant in Victorian gardens were lush, well-defined shrubbery and hedges, which could hide unsightly fences or create “natural fences” between neighboring properties. Accordingly, Patty planted tall bamboo along the back of the Bigelow property to maximize privacy and other varieties of smaller trees in front of the perennial garden.

An arbor covered with flowering vines and an ornamental sundial creates a bold focal point for the back-porch view.

Patty also added a trellis archway as a focal point from the back porch. She planted classic Victorian flowers in neat flowerbeds throughout, as well as along walkways. While most Victorian-era gardens included an ornate cast-iron fence, Patty chose to install a wooden fence around the pool area that matches the architectural elements of the guest house and office in the back of the property.

Other Victorian elements Patty incorporated include surrounding vegetable patches with garden tiles and edging stones to keep them from merging into one another. She lined the pathway to her Victorian home with old brick and the back patio and pool area with brick pavers and bluestone.

Patty used bluestone to markt he pathway to the pool, lawn and driveway.

As a valued extension of the home, a Victorian garden could be enjoyed even during spring rains thanks to tall windows and wrap-around porches. “The first thing I want our guests to see from our back porch looking is our Victorian garden,” Patty says. “The diversity of colors and textures shift with each season, and the tall trees and lawn beg to be touched.”

by Cheryl Johannes

Photography by Jacqueline deMontravel

The post Create a Victorian Garden Parlor appeared first on .

There are basically two approaches to consider: the Victorian and Arts & Crafts treatments. Victorians preferred fuller, more fanciful window dressings, and their lace curtains were typically gathered more fully than the later Arts & Crafts period. At the time, the typical ratio for selecting widths of lace was one-and-a-half to two times the width of the window–in other words, a 30 inch wide window should have a lace panel(s) that is 45 to 60 inches wide. Victorian style lace treatments were also quite long, often extending well past the sill and near (or even onto) the floor. Today, the preferred length is around the height of the baseboard. Window treatments were also hung on the outside woodwork moldings of the window (or casing), although lace, by itself, could be hung inside the casing as well.

Photo: Thinkstock

In contrast, the Arts & Crafts movement of the late 19th century that extended into the 1910s espoused a simpler treatment. Lace curtains were laid “flatter” with less gathering. In this case, the ratio was one to one-and-a-half times the amount of lace to window sash. The curtains were also shorter; it was typical to have them simply “dust” the window sill and rest on it–or perhaps just a little longer, extending onto the window frame’s apron. It was common to hang the curtains inside the window frame and not have the rod mounted on the woodwork.

These are not rules, simply guidelines; there is not one right way or wrong, but your way. Do whatever you feel looks best in your Victorian style home.

To give you options, Cooper’s Cottage Lace offers curtains in two widths: 20 and 47 inches. The narrow panels are perfect for sidelights or to be paired together in a single window, while the wide panels are intended to be used as a single panel per sash. Lengths range from as short as 54 inches up to 90 inches, although the company will take custom orders for longer lengths. The company also offers a custom-shortening service to adapt their lace products to any size window.

To learn more about the genesis of Cooper’s Cottage Lace, see our back posts . If you need to restore your Victorian home’s wooden windows before you deck them with period-perfect lace, click here.

by Benjamin Waugh

The post Get Victorian Style with Authentic Lace Curtains, Part 3 appeared first on .

“Bradbury & Bradbury have long been the preeminent resource for Victorian and Arts & Crafts wallpaper, so they seemed the natural choice for this project,” Cooper explains. “Steve Bauer has drawn the great Bradbury wallpapers. “Each time I look at one, I still see some wonderful little detail that I hadn’t noticed before. When I decided that my company had to extend its line into the Eastlake style, he was the first person I called.”

Photo: Thinkstock

Bauer was delighted at the challenge and produced what has become known as the Eastlake Panel. It is meant to coordinate not only with Bradbury’s many wallpaper room-sets but also to complement the home of any lover of Victorian style.

As the company’s website explains, “From the very eclectic world of Victorian Eastlake ornament comes this pattern inspired by an 1880s design. Combining Gothic and Japanesque influences, it would be a rich addition to any Aesthetic Movement interior or eclectic decorating scheme.”

Once the design work was completed, Cooper’s Cottage Lace then commissioned the 100% cotton lace panels to be woven in Scotland on the only Madras-style looms still in production. Madras is a premium grade of lace that applies the pattern over a layer of cotton scrim. The result is a deeply textured lace that is crisper and richer in appearance than the more common Nottingham variety.

Photo: Thinkstock

“The Eastlake Panel offers a wonderful combination of privacy, yet allows dappled light into one’s home,” Cooper says. “Most notable is the alternating use of stylized chrysanthemums and angular motifs that instantly hallmark this distinctive pattern as from the 1870-1880 eras. No other lace pattern available summons up the styles of this time. They tend to gravitate toward the turn of the century and are more open and Colonial Revival in feel. There’s nothing Colonial about this one!

Cooper continues: “Our very first customer for this pattern is the proud owner of an amazing Victorian house in San Francisco. He has a breathtaking collection of mid-to-late Victorian furnishings, and these panels worked brilliantly with his Eastlake dining room. The interesting thing is that we’ve used this curtain panel in Arts & Crafts interiors and it works quite well there, too. It has a rectilinearity that responds well to Craftsman furnishings.”

To learn about how to hang lace curtains to achieve authentic Victorian style, see our next posts.

by Benjamin Waugh

The post Get Victorian Style with Authentic Lace Curtains, Part 2 appeared first on .

Photo: Thinkstock

Having observed this void in the decorative timeline, Cooper’s Cottage Lace of Amherst, Massachusetts, the firm that had risen to prominence by weaving cotton Arts & Crafts lace curtains designed by the leading contemporary artisans of the Craftsman Movement, set about searching for an appropriate pattern.”The 1870s and 1880s were a time of great transition in decorative arts and architecture,” notes Dan Cooper, president of Cooper’s Cottage Lace. “The Renaissance and Rococo Revival influences were waning, and at the same time you had this renewed interest in Medievalism and Gothicism, which became known as the English Arts & Crafts Movement as promoted by William Morris. In America, it was also referred to as the Eastlake style. Regardless as which gentleman you choose as catalyst, decoration became more shallow and angular, eschewing the Classicism found just a few years earlier.”

Furthering this stylistic sea change, the Aesthetic Movement became wildly popular, incorporating motifs from Far and Middle Asia, notably with Japanese and Persian designs. “It was not uncommon to see several influences on a given piece of furniture or other decorative objects, with no accounting for historic accuracy,” Cooper chuckles. “I’ve seen tea boxes with Japanese, Chinese and Anglo designs, all gleefully blended into a weird but delightful pastiche.”

Today, the Eastlake and Anglo-Japanese styles are worshiped by a unique group of enthusiastic collectors, including Cooper. When searching for an artist to create an Eastlake lace pattern, he went immediately to the legendary Steve Bauer of Bradbury & Bradbury wallpapers, the man and the company who brought Eastlake and Aesthetic movement wall-covering patterns into so many of today’s grand Victorian homes.

To learn more about Cooper’s Cottage Lace and how to use it to add Victorian style to your home, keep reading our upcoming posts.

by Benjamin Waugh

The post Get Victorian Style with Authentic Lace Curtains, Part 1 appeared first on .

(Photo: Thinkstock)

As with any home restoration project, begin by photographing what exists already: photograph each window and note each one’s location, along with the condition of its paint, hardware, frame, sill and sash. Then follow these 10 DIY steps to working windows, adapted from The National Park Service:

1. Check for water. Water sinks through loose or cracked joints to sit in the gaps between a window’s many pieces and it causes the wood to rot. Look for places where paint has peeled or flaked; paint deterioration can (but doesn’t always) signal water-logged wood.
2. Check for internal rot. Pierce your wooden window frame with a knife or other sharp object at a right angle. If the wood doesn’t splinter but feels spongy, you’ve struck rot.
3. Check for structural soundness. For instance, can you open and close the window easily? Are there any parts obviously missing? If your windows have suffered no structural damage, you can repair rot and other minor weather damage yourself by following steps 4-10.
4. Take the window frame apart. Remove paint from each piece as you go, beginning with the stop, parting bead and sash. Work the pieces apart in gentle increments with two putty knives. If your window is double-hung, remove the upper sash and gently tease out the parting bead.
5. Remove the glass pane. Remove any putty from the insides of the frame; then sand, patch and prime the sash. Let the primer on the sash dry for three days.
6. While the primer dries, repair or replace the glass as needed.
7. Once the sash has dried, reinstall the glass pane. First, cover the rabbet (the ledge on the inside of the frame on which the pane sits when lying flat) with a thin layer of linseed oil putty to cushion the glass. Second, press the glass onto the rabbet. Third, use a light hammer to drive sprigs through the glass and into the frame. Hammer one sprig into each corner, then along the rest of the frame’s edges at about five inches apart. Fourth, cover the edge of the pane and the rest of the rabbet with more putty to secure the pane. Use a putty knife to shape the putty into a bevel, creating a diagonal line from the pane to the top of the rabbet. Leave the putty to harden for three days.
8. While waiting for the putty to harden, check the jamb and sill for decay, and repair as needed.
9. Once the putty is hard, cover it with exterior paint. Stroke some paint onto the edge of the pane as well to create a weather-tight seal between the pane, the putty and the wooden frame.
10. Rebuild the window and reinstall it into its opening.

To learn more about hurricane preparation and historic home restoration, keep reading our victorian blogs

by Elaine K. Phillips

The post Home Restoration: DIY Wooden Window Repair Guide appeared first on .

“We restored the wood windows and replaced all the broken glass, but nothing we did was really hurricane preparation,” Handler says. “We did have all the windows screwed shut, but really, once you do these basic things like clearing debris off your roof, there isn’t much you can do to prepare your home for such a big storm.”

Once part of George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate, Woodlawn was nearly destroyed by an 1896 hurricane—but not this time. Carefully maintained by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Woodlawn suffered only minor landscape damage due to Hurricane Sandy. (Photo: Woodlawn in 2003 by William Thornton, image public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

As Handler points out, any home, no matter how well-cared for, may shatter under the force of any strong storm if at the storm’s epicenter. But because Woodlawn survived the “superstorm” with minimal damage, Handler’s experience suggests that simple home restoration and “routine maintenance” might be the key to saving your historic home–even its vulnerable wooden windows.

Why You Shouldn’t Replace Wooden Windows

If your windows have ever broken, you know first-hand that debris will flow into a home through even the smallest crack. But beware: replacing your Victorian home’s original windows with modern ones will not necessarily make your home better enabled to withstand the next storm.

Historic windows were constructed on-site by local builders, measured precisely to fit the home’s window openings and built in local styles. Modern windows—even historic reproductions—are mass-produced; you may not be able to order windows that fit your window openings’ depth, height and width. An incorrectly sized modern window will create leeway between the windowsill, casing and jamb that can allow water to seep into your home.

Moreover, more than 50 percent of today’s windows are made of vinyl. Though scratch- and rot-resistant, Victorian homeowners will find that vinyl windows have inherent practical drawbacks. Unlike wood, vinyl expands during hot weather and contracts during cold weather. Therefore, vinyl windows warp over time; if you paint a vinyl window a dark color, it will absorb heat, hence expanding and warping even faster. And warped vinyl—unlike rotted, cracked or burned wood—can’t be repaired.

To learn more about Victorian home restoration and storm preparation, Keep reading our post or articleo.

by Elaine K. Phillips

Sources: The National Park Service, The National Trust for Historic Preservation, Hank Handler of the Oak Grove Restoration Company, and Working Windows by Terry Meany.

The post Victorian Home Restoration: Why Keep Wooden Windows appeared first on .

The Nineteenth Century: The Second Anglo-American Invasion

From 1861 to 1877, the River Road faced as much transforming turmoil as it had in the two decades following the Louisiana Purchase. In spring 1862, Union troops took both New Orleans and Baton Rouge, in the process burning the “Castellated Gothic” capitol building, which had been designed and built by architect James Harrison Dakin in 1847. Unlike the “scorched earth” tactics used to destroy Louisiana’s historic plantations–Belmont, Belle Grove, The Cottage, Elmwood, Le Petit Versailles, Longview, and others–this fire was an accident; and arguably, so was much of the destruction to follow.

Louisiana’s old state capitol building, now rebuilt as it was when destroyed in 1862. (Photo by David J. Kaminsky in 1978, The Library of Congress; image in United States public domain.)

After the war, Louisiana endured more years of Reconstruction than any other Southern state; and as a result, Creole architecture again faced Anglicization. To pay neglected wartime taxes, the River Road’s landowners were forced to sell their plantations (scorched or not); quickly bought up by Northern investors, these estates became the sites of grand homes built in distinctly Anglo-American styles: Greek Revival, Italianate and Eastlake. As the Gilded Age came and went, so did many early-1800s Creole-style homes. They weren’t destroyed: unlike the French language, which the Northerners intentionally suppressed, these old homes were simply forgotten.

The master bedroom at Poplar Grove Plantation, an 1880s mansion built and furnished in a mishmash of Gothic, Eastlake and Renaissance Revival styles. (Photo by Richard Sexton, from “Vestiges of Grandeur”)

The Twentieth Century: Industrialization and Preservation

Ironically, the twentieth century brought industrialization and preservation to the River Road almost simultaneously. In 1900, Professor William Woodward of Tulane University began to see in the region’s historic homes the inspiration for architectural innovation; the following year, oil was discovered along the Mississippi. As the war-scorched sugar cane fields were covered by petrochemical smokestacks, many plantation homes were destroyed, including Angelina, California, Chatsworth, Duboyne, Helvetia, Killona and Myrtleand.

The carved stone of a Catholic crucifix still stands amidst the metal and machinery of a petrochemical plant, long after the church has moved on. (Photo by Richard Sexton, from “Vestiges of Grandeur”)

In 1920, the region’s wartime oil bubble burst, jeopardizing any extant historic estates maintained by oil profits. But peacetime brought more than just economic hardship: it also brought war-traumatized writers and artists, who poured into New Orleans and produced numerous works praising the city, including its nineteenth-century architecture. By 1930, their words had birthed a preservation movement; and when war came again in 1941, the local industrial boom gave the preservationists the funds they needed.

Since 1945, many of the River Road’s nineteenth-century homes have been restored. Even after Hurricane Katrina, visitors can see many excellent Greek Revival homes in Victorian neighborhoods throughout the region. But few specimens of Creole architecture survive.

The River Road’s preservation movement has fought its way into the twenty-first century, granted increased public visibility by books like Richard Sexton’s New Orleans: Elegance and Decadence and Vestiges of Grandeur: The Plantations of Louisiana’s River Road. The latter photography-driven book exposes the contrasts inherent to the River Road’s architecture, from Creole-style plantations to Anglo-American Victorian homes, from caved-in slave quarters to smoke-stained factory buildings. To learn more about the region’s Victorian neighborhoods, peruse a copy of Vestiges of Grandeur. Or, better yet, take a drive along the River Road, a camera ready on the passenger seat to capture each glimpse into the past.

Written by Elaine K. Phillips

Photography, unless otherwise stated, by Richard Sexton

Source: Vestiges of Grandeur: The Plantations of Louisiana’s River Road by Richard Sexton, published by Chronicle Books.

The post Exploring Victorian Neighborhoods: Louisiana’s River Road, Part 2 appeared first on .

Dating from the Victorian era, these slave cabins at Evergreen Plantation have “miraculously” survived both the Union’s scorched-earth tactics and industrialization. (Photo by Richard Sexton, from “Vestiges of Grandeur”)

The Eighteenth Century: The Birth of Creole Architecture

The River Road’s grand homes are rooted in their natural environment, their architectural hallmarks derived from indigenous structures. When the French first arrived in Louisiana, they found the Native American city of Tabiscania one thousand inhabitants strong. Built with local materials to withstand the local heat, wet and wind, the Colapissa Indians’ homes taught the French settlers new architectural forms: thick poles stuck into the soft earth for structural strength, galleries that allowed for cross-ventilation, rectilinear communities clinging to high ground.

Built circa-1845, the Middleton house in Plaquemine sports the turned colonettes characteristic of Creole architecture. (Photo by Richard Sexton from “Vestiges of Grandeur”)

In the early 1700s, the French began building in earnest–and in imitation of indigenous architecture. Villages were square, as they were in the mother country, but the houses were rectangular, with palisades, galleries and raised foundations. In 1734, engineer Bernard de Verges designed a timber house with a raised brick foundation, broad front gallery, Norman-truss roof and casement windows. It wasn’t a chateaux forced upon a semi-tropical landscape, but a true fusion: it was Creole architecture.

The Nineteenth Century: The First Anglo-American Invasion

For the Creole culture, the early 1800s were years of change. In quick succession, the Louisiana Purchase, the War of 1812, and the Mississippi steamboat transformed their relatively isolated community into an international economic powerhouse. Sugar brought tremendous wealth–enough to tempt Americans of British decent south and send the River Road’s nouveau riche across the Atlantic on European tours.

Like many other Creole homes in the River Road, the Destrehan Plantation was remodeled in the 1840s in the Greek Revival style. Shown here, the daughter’s room, though simple, is recognizably Victorian. (Photo by Richard Sexton from “Vestiges of Grandeur”)

During the Victorian era, the Creoles invested their new fortunes and international perspectives into grand plantation houses. Those already built were remade in the classical image: for example, an 1832 remodel morphed the 1800 Evergreen Plantation’s wooden colonettes (the direct descendant of the Colapissa Indians’ homes’ thick poles) into two-story Doric columns. All along the River Road, Victorian neighborhoods of Greek Revival, Italianate and Gothic Revival-style structures appeared left and right, evidence that most of America’s millionaires lived here and that the adaptable Creoles had happily absorbed the Anglo-American aesthetic.

At least, until war came.

Discover the fate of the River Road’s grand Victorian neighborhoods in our next post…

Written by Elaine K. Phillips

Photography by Richard Sexton and previously published in Vestiges of Grandeur: The Plantations of Louisiana’s River Road by Chronicle Books.

Source: Vestiges of Grandeur: The Plantations of Louisiana’s River Road by Richard Sexton, published by Chronicle Books.

The post Exploring Victorian Neighborhoods: Louisiana’s River Road, Part 1 appeared first on .

Cleo the Great Dane enjoys relaxing in her favorite spot, under the framed and mounted Amish carriage blanket.

This bedroom is not just for guests; it is also for the Thornberg’s Great Dane, Cleo. “It’s her favorite room in the house; her perch from where she can keep tabs on all the dogs and people going about their business in the neighborhood,” Barbara says. “The only one she barks at is the mailman.”

Hanging on the walls of the room is Barbara’s collection of paintings and photos, all of which feature people and their dogs. She is fascinated by the relationship between dogs and their owners, and it all started with a Victorian-era photograph of a little girl praying by the bed with her dog by her side. From that point on, whenever she sees this subject in a vintage photograph or painting, she has to buy it. The collection includes a photo of Sarah Bernhardt with her Great Dane and one of Coco Chanel with her pooch. “Some of the subjects are famous people, but most are just of people of another age who are no longer with us,” Barbara says. “I find them lovely and poignant.”

Barbara’s interior-design background is showcased in the colors she uses, not just in the pink walls of the Dog Room but also in the deep fuchsia color in the master bedroom. Inspired by the crepe myrtle trees planted on the streets by the neighborhood association, Barbara likes strong colors. “You can get away with using such a bold color on the walls only if you use a light color on the floor and the ceiling.” The light that comes in through the window also helps brighten the fuchsia, let through by the balloon Roman shades installed within the window framework. Barbara admits it’s not what the Victorians would have done, but she chose it in order to show off the moldings.

They purchased the stonework, from an 18th-century French church, from one of their favorite antique stores in Carmel, California.

“My philosophy is that a house is not a museum. I love Victoriana and Victorian pieces, but I take artistic license in mixing eras. I think it makes rooms more visually interesting,” Barbara says. “The Victorians were eclectic and would bring items back from their travels to mix in with traditional pieces and items that they had inherited. I continue in that vein. A house should be a reflection of your personality and what you love—I don’t think you have to put only one era of items into a vintage house.”

Thirty-five years later, she has no regrets. “I lived in plaster dust for a decade, and we were always working on something for 20 years. Now I can see it’s time to redo a few things,” Barbara says, with a gleam in her eye. “With a vintage home, you’re never finished.” But with a superb restoration team like the Thornbergs, that certainly seems like it’s part of the fun of being married.

If you missed the beginning of Barbara and Andy’s story, click here.

by Jennifer Myers

Photography by Mark Tanner

The post Restoring Turn-of-the-Century L.A., Part 3 appeared first on .

Andy’s background and training as a mechanical engineer was instrumental in the Thornbergs’ being able to do so much of the work themselves. Although the previous owner, a developer, had put up drywall, the house was just bare bones—there was no kitchen and the roof needed to be replaced, as did all of the plumbing and electricity. Barbara took over stripping all the paint from the house and has given many a lecture on restoring Victorian woodwork.

Barbara’s husband bought her this modern art piece by Gerry McMillan,
a California artist. She likes juxtaposing the
contemporary pieces with the antiques.

“I used blowtorches, sanders and something that looked like a hopped-up hairdryer,” she explains. “I scraped off every layer of paint, caulked each nail hole, sanded it all, primed and finally painted. It took five years!” But Andy, with his many skills, did the rest of the restoration—with Barbara steadfast by his side. The only hired help used for the house was for the forced air heating.

Barbara’s interior-design training came into play when the kitchen needed to be designed. For the first year, it had been like camping, living only in the master bedroom while they remodeled the rest of the house. Andy had cobbled together a makeshift kitchen with sawhorses and plywood and a few inexpensive cabinets from Sears, but it was very crude.

When it came time to build the kitchen, they worked together to create a kitchen that utilized the 12-foot ceilings, inspired by a photograph Barbara found in one of her Victoriana books. Barbara’s interior-design background complemented Andy’s engineering skills perfectly when coming up with the design.

Barbara’s kitchen was inspired by the green Viking stove and her yellow Rookwood pottery. The tiles were custom-made, but the stained-glass window is one of two from a pair of doors from Scotland. The other has been integrated into the Thornbergs’ pantry.

Since there were only a few remaining interior doors, the Thornbergs had a blade manufactured that could cut new doors to match the originals as well as make kitchen cabinets to match. Barbara pulled her color scheme from her collection of yellow Rookwood pottery and her green Viking stove, and chose a brick color for balance.

But the tiles had to be custom-made, and luckily Barbara had heard of Richard Keit and his RTK Studios, a master of the Spanish “cuerda seca” tilemaking technique (see sidebar on page 50). She presented her color scheme and her design, which was based on a Victorian pattern she’d found in a reference book and the cornflower detail on the tile of one of the house’s fireplace mantels. Richard, by applying a wax outline and using a bulb syringe to inject the color into the empty areas, tried over and over to get the tiles to look perfect. “It was very difficult, but Richard just kept making tiles until he finally got it just right. He’s an amazing craftsman,” Barbara recalls.

For the conclusion of Barbara and Andy’s story, click here.

by Jennifer Myers

Photography by Mark Tanner

The post Restoring Turn-of-the-Century L.A., Part 2 appeared first on .