Victorian Interior Decoration

[JoceAndChris]

Another question is how to apply the stencilling. As panels or just a frieze? If the former I need to design a suitable corner piece, if the latter, how do I stop it before it goes up stairs? Should I stencil a dado? What about the skirtings and door frames. Still plenty to work out, in short.

Hmmm, all extraordinarily complex. I can't visualise it at all without a painted mock up on a piece of paper.

If a frieze, where?

The panels sound nice, though masses of work of course.

I had a good look at the colours on the charts - which bear no resemblance to how your photo appears on this screen - how are the Fired Earth paints in comparison to the chart? The FnB paints are just slightly lighter than they appear on the charts. Blazer's lovely - but if they were my colours I'd be inclined to soften the intensity of those greens a bit. Verdilith, particularly, has an acidity to it - I'd want to soften it to Churlish Green, and make the Malachite slightly less black by using Minster Green. But tell me to go away, you like brighter colours than me and the photo does look very very nice.

I'm trying to get my head round your cornice proposal and can't at all; I think you're saying the flowery bit in yellow at the edge, blue grey in the background with brown flowers standing proud, then the leafy bit in red and green and the edge again in a different yellow. That's a wild proposal, far too wild for me, but I'm prepared to be proved wrong and eat humble pie at some point in the future.

Everyone said my Print Room would be too wild and over the top, and it is, and I love it - so sometimes you just have to be bold and take the plunge!


You'll see if it works when you've done a metre.

 

[Lime]

Am I the only person who remembers what the world used to be like?

When granny's old 18th century card table stood side by side with your modern 50s settee, the utility furniture from the war, and the remains of great aunt's victorian house clearance?
It was a pastiche.

It is a modern phenomenon to have everything matching both in style and vintage.
It is a product of our throw-away society, modern shoddy materials and poor construction.

It never used to happen even in the richest households of the past.

 

[JoceAndChris]

But it can happen now!

What interests me more than a faithful recreation of the past is an imaginative reconstruction of a Regency fantasy.

 

[Nigel Watts]

The Greeks almost certainly painted their temples in bright colours. Not sure how authentic this illustration is, but we have red, blue, green, bright yellow and deep cream here.

 

[Nigel Watts]

It is a modern phenomenon to have everything matching both in style and vintage.
It is a product of our throw-away society, modern shoddy materials and poor construction.

It never used to happen even in the richest households of the past.

Not quite true I think. Robert Adam, for example, exercised huge control over both the decor and furnishing of his interiors. Burgess likewise. Older furniture would have got consigned to the attic.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Good point above. Victorian (and Jane Austen novels) are full of references to upstart new wives redeccying the whole house and putting the horrible old fashioned stuff in the lumber room - it's always happened. And though we are a throwaway society perhaps also we are the most eclectic one yet, having so many hundreds of years of design before us?

That piccy Nigel - call me boring but I think the green argues with the blue. Put all those colours in a small room and I'd have a headache.

Mind you, I'm all for the pushing of boundaries!

 

[Lime]

It is a modern phenomenon to have everything matching both in style and vintage.
It is a product of our throw-away society, modern shoddy materials and poor construction.

It never used to happen even in the richest households of the past.

Not quite true I think. Robert Adam, for example, exercised huge control over both the decor and furnishing of his interiors. Burgess likewise. Older furniture would have got consigned to the attic.

Cherry picking examples doesn't alter the fact that the vast majority of people in the past never ever had furnishings to match either each other or the period.

It is a modern thing and an almost totally false reconstruction of the past.

 

[JoceAndChris]

I'm sure you make a good point Lime. When Charlotte Burroughs had the garden room added onto the house in the 30s I'm sure it was furnished just as you say - Granny's hand-me-downs and bits and pieces from the early 20th C. It isn't very different now - with the original 30s fireplace, and my mum's 1920s piano, and a 50s sofa that replicates Chippendale, and a brand new FnB wallpaper that replicates 18th century design. A right old mixed bag. But whether it's more appropriate, aesthetically pleasing, or authentic than creating an entirely 30s styled room - now that I couldn't say. I think making a 30s room would be more fun.

 

[Nigel Watts]

It never used to happen even in the richest households of the past.

the vast majority of people in the past never ever had furnishings to match either each other or the period.

Now I agree with your second statement. Time for me book myself a session at Pedants' Anonymous I think.

My house will be full of anachronisms when (if?) it is finished. Apart from obvious ones like electricity, bathrooms and central heating, my 1840 style drawing room will contain some Regency furniture and some 20th C pictures. My projected 1880s aesthetic movement bedroom will contain some late 18th C furniture, an Edwardian chair and a modern bed.

The truth is that some styles can cope with an eclectic mix of furnishings and some cant. Victorian and Edwardian interiors (except in extreme cases, such as those designed by Pugin, Burgess or Rennie Macintosh) are generally pretty inclusive. Others are not, such as Adam's neoclassicism or the minimalism favoured by international modernists from Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe to Foster and Rogers. The modern style is now hopelessly old-fashioned but it and the dinosaurs who continue to advocate it cling on tenaciously. Minimalism can be nice to look at in short doses, and is tolerable for a work environment or airport terminal, but I couldnt live in a minimalist house.

 

[Nigel Watts]

That piccy Nigel - call me boring but I think the green argues with the blue. Put all those colours in a small room and I'd have a headache.

I might too, but serious-minded Victorian writers advocated strongly polychromatic schemes for domestic interiors. I want to see what happens if one tries it although I will be seeking to exercise some judgement in the process. It will be a lot of effort and I really do not know if I will be able to bring it off.

Strangely, the more I have been thinking about the project the duller I find the built environment around me. Why is the early 21st Century so bland when it comes to the decoration of buildings, inside and out? It particularly struck me as I entered the court of the British Museum yesterday - it was as if one had entered a black and white photograph, or Mr Bean had just exploded a tanker-full of white paint. And Foster's cladding of the Reading Room is unbelievably inarticulate and uncouth. I don't mind the roof and can live with the added bits for the shops and cafes, but the central drum in monstrous. It reminds me of Speer and those bland classicists favoured by Mussolini. No better symbol of the arrogance of the state-funded artistic elite.

This pursuit of things Victorian is making me feel self righteous and in need of moralising moralise. Getting into the part seems to work for actors - does it work for decorators too I wonder?

 

[Nigel Watts]

The more I research this subject the more the Victorian era seems like a lost world. Where have all the colours gone?

 

[JoceAndChris]

Those diagrams are fascinating. With the chalky softness of distemper, the flickering of candlelight and the gentle dirtying from the fires, I can imagine they'd have a beautiful, dull lustre, and watered down brightness to them. I wonder how well they translate into Fired Earth paints - but I think you said you plan to use distemper?

I agree with you about modern day decoration being bland too - Chris thinks that's all about cheapness - but I think it's about lots of things, and especially that highly wrought architecture, decoration, gardens etc require armies of people prepared to work for a pittance, which is why you still get elaborate work in countries like India, but less so here.

No doubt someone will come along and prove my sweeping generalisation wrong, but the Wars, the welfare state, did seem to put an end to embroidered world.

 

[Nigel Watts]

My second attempted colour scheme is going better. I have toned everything down a bit: mustard, olive green, grey-blue.

The challenge is how to get from the wall colour (red) to the ceiling colour (grey blue). The diagrams are quite helpful. Apart from a thin line of yellow or gold to start things off, the first moulding seems to be a complementary colour - in my case therefore green. Then a mustard line, followed by the deep part of the cove, which looks good in red. It has a flower and leaf motif in front of it. Just tried grey-blue for this and it looks better than green. Mustard again then perhaps salmon (?) then very pale blue as the ground for the rosettes in buff. Salmon and very pale yellow again, finishing off perhaps with pale terracotta against the blue ceiling. I am about half way into putting up some test colours which I am mixing myself using dry pigment, whiting and rabbit skin glue size.

My vanity is such that I am not prepared to post any pics until I have something I am starting to feel happy with. There may be a long wait.

 

[Penners]

The more I research this subject the more the Victorian era seems like a lost world. Where have all the colours gone?

Hmmm - I have to say that, looking at those colour scheme diagrams, the phrase "everything but the kitchen sink" springs to mind!

 

[MatthewC]

The more I research this subject the more the Victorian era seems like a lost world. Where have all the colours gone?

Hmmm - I have to say that, looking at those colour scheme diagrams, the phrase "everything but the kitchen sink" springs to mind!

One feels at this point that congratulations to Penners are in order for his 10,000th post on this forum.

 

[MdB]

Indeed. Congratulations Penners on being the ultimate wordsmith.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Thank you for brightening every day Mr P. We'd all be lost without you.

And your experiments Nigel! I'm so impressed by your dedication to this quest for a lovely, workable Victorian scheme. Make sure you post pics as soon as you feel a bit happy with something.

 

[Schoolmarm]

:shock: how have I missed this thread?


Fascinating!

 

[Nigel Watts]

Experiments are continuing but the pace is snail-like. The light is poor in my hall and distemper paints when they are applied are much darker than when they dry. So far I have mixed and tried about ten different colours and shades but am still not content. Victorian authors talk about a "colour bloom" being created by the use of small adjacent areas of different colours; only painting a small trial area makes it hard to visualise the finished effect.

With any luck my folio-sized copy of Owen Jones's Grammar of Ornament will arrive today as this could be a key source.

 

[Penners]

One feels at this point that congratulations to Penners are in order for his 10,000th post on this forum.

Alternatively, you could suggest a communal shout of, "Penners - get a life!"