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Victorian

Layered and lavish

Rooms that tell a story through every tassel, pattern and velvet surface. Restraint is not a virtue here.

Ornate, layered, richly decorated. Multiple patterns, heavy drapery, dark woods. Aesthetic excess of the Victorian era.

More ornate and historically specific than Maximalist; more decorative and layered than Old English Manor.

Jeid Studio

What sits closest

The styles nearest to yours, measured the same way the quiz measured you. A room of yours that does not quite fit this style often fits one of these.

MaximalistBold & Statement
Old English ManorHeritage & Formal
English CountryHeritage & Formal

How pattern works here

  • Pattern runs on every surface at once and is organised by the wall.
  • The dado, fill and frieze each carry their own pattern, the carpet carries a fourth, the upholstery a fifth.
  • Scale steps up the wall: small dado, medium fill, bold frieze.
  • Colour is deep and saturated, in jewel reds, greens, blues, mauves and golds, with reddish pink, greenish blue and olive in Aesthetic rooms; early Victorian rooms can go pale pink and white.
  • Patterns share a palette, not a motif: a damask fill, a scrolling frieze, a floral Brussels and a silk stripe can sit together if the colours agree.
  • If the room feels calm, it is not Victorian.

Surface by surface

What this style asks for on each surface, and what pushes it into a different style entirely.

Flooring
  • Halls and ground floors call for oak tongue and groove strips, often quarter sawn so the ray fleck shows.
  • Parlors call for parquet, 1/2 inch to 7/8 inch thick, in herringbone, block or diagonal strip, inside a wide contrast border of walnut or darker stained oak.
  • Many period rooms ran the parquet border about three feet in and laid carpet in the center.
  • Halls and porches take encaustic and geometric tile cut from a 6 inch square.
  • Bedroom and service floors can be pine, painted or grained, under carpet or matting; old floors read dark because of layers of shellac, varnish and dirt, not the wood.
  • Avoid: wide pale planks, grey washes, stripped bare pine, polished concrete.
Tile
  • Floors call for unglazed encaustic and geometric tile in off white, red, buff, brown and blue black, with blue and green used sparingly.
  • Sizes come from a 6 inch square: 6, 4 1/4, 3, 2 1/8, 1 1/2 and 1 inch pieces, with 6 inch border strips 1, 2 or 3 inches wide, set out from the front door with fine joints.
  • Kitchens and sculleries call for red quarry tile, 6 inch or larger, laid diagonal or staggered.
  • Walls take glazed 6 inch squares, hexagons and small octagons in white, cream, buff, celadon, turquoise or olive, as a dado with a moulded ceramic rail; hand dipped glazes have more depth.
  • Handmade cement tile at 8 by 8 by 5/8 inch is the buyable cousin today and is rated for hearths and entries.
  • Avoid: polyurethane or resin sealers on old tile, large format porcelain, wood look plank tile, glossy white subway.
Carpet
  • The period carpet is Brussels, a looped uncut worsted pile in up to five colours, laid wall to wall in parlors and bedrooms.
  • A bordered carpet square inside a parquet border is the common compromise.
  • Patterns can run to cartouches, scrolls and dense florals on a coloured ground.
  • Straw matting can replace carpet in bedrooms in summer.
  • Avoid: plush solid broadloom, shag, sisal, grey neutral loop.
Cabinets
  • Victorian kitchens had no fitted cabinets, so the style calls for painted tongue and groove on the lower walls and built ins in a washable gloss, over plain plaster in whitewash or distemper.
  • The one bare wood is a scrubbed pine worktop or table.
  • Display and storage pieces read as furniture: ebonised art cabinets with flat decoration, overmantel shelving with a mirror and tiles, and carved walnut or mahogany case pieces.
  • Glazed cabinet fronts can also work.
  • Avoid: flat slab fronts, stained raised panel runs, floating shelves, matte black boxes.
Lighting
  • The style calls for gasolier form: a brass chandelier with gas cocks, curved pipe stem arms and open top etched glass shades, with gas lamps facing up.
  • An antique gasolier rewired reads truest; period houses electrified their own around 1910.
  • Sconces in pairs flank mirrors.
  • Finish is brass, lacquered or left to age.
  • Avoid: recessed cans as the main light, drum shades, black iron farmhouse fixtures, LED strips.
Fireplaces
  • Every reception room calls for a fireplace.
  • Before the 1870s the mantel is carved white marble; after, a carved wood mantel with a built in mirror and shelves, or an overmantel with tiles.
  • The insert is a cast iron register grate finished in stove black or iron paste, with glazed tiled cheeks, often Minton style florals, and a tiled hearth matching the firebox floor.
  • Slate mantels can be painted to look like Italian marble.
  • Mahogany and oak surrounds are polished or varnished, pine surrounds are painted, and the grate is scaled to the room.
  • Avoid: stone veneer stacks, linear gas boxes, stripped pine surrounds, oversized grates in small rooms.
Windows
  • Timber double hung sash windows with horns and slim glazing bars, kept in repair so they do not rattle.
  • Bay windows run full height and carry the room.
  • Interior timber shutters give insulation and security; thick lined curtains do the rest.
  • Secondary glazing can sit inside the frame and is reversible.
  • Avoid: vinyl replacements, picture windows, thick muntins, bare windows.
Stone
  • Marble is the parlor mantel and hearth stone, honed or polished.
  • Marble, travertine and limestone can etch from vinegar, bleach and other acids, so the style calls for neutral cleaners and an impregnating sealer; an etch needs professional honing.
  • Slate serves mantels and hearths, plain or painted to read as marble.
  • Kitchens and sculleries call for stone slabs underfoot.
  • Granite is a modern counter choice here, not a period one.
  • Many granites want a penetrating sealer, and most household acids often do not trouble it.
  • Avoid: white quartz as the hero, waterfall islands, leathered black slabs, mitred thin edges.
Interior doors
  • The Victorian door is the four panel door, with raised and fielded or flat panels and bolection moulding, hung in bold casings.
  • Front and hall doors can glaze the top two panels.
  • Between parlors the style calls for oversized pocket doors.
  • Joinery is painted or grained; oak and mahogany are polished.
  • Hardware is cast brass on an ornate plate, such as the Pisano pattern of 1897 or Yale and Towne's 1884 Lancaster, with fluted or octagonal crystal knobs on interior doors, in unlacquered or antique brass.
  • Avoid: flush doors, barn doors, matte black levers, five panel shaker.
Stairs
  • The hall stair is the show.
  • It calls for turned balusters with complex profiles, a carved or turned newel post that anchors the handrail, and decorative spandrels under the string.
  • Oak, walnut or mahogany, polished; painted pine on secondary stairs.
  • A dado rail on the stair wall should match the handrail height.
  • Avoid: cable rail, glass panels, square iron balusters, open risers.
Wallpaper
  • Paper the three part wall.
  • The fill carries an all over repeat such as Willow Bough, Bird and Anemone, Marigold or a Knightsbridge Damask; the frieze carries a bold band such as an Italianate or Persian frieze; the dado carries Lincrusta or a dado paper.
  • Colours lean reddish pink, greenish blue and olive.
  • Block printed or heavy papers read right.
  • Avoid: peel and stick, grey grasscloth, giant murals, one accent wall.
Paint
  • Walls and ceilings are flat: distemper or a matte paint, in off white or cream, never brilliant white.
  • Trim is painted or grained, or clear varnished and shellacked to a gloss on oak and mahogany.
  • Colour is deep and saturated by mid century: Saxon Green, Rookwood Dark Red, Billiard Green, Deepest Mauve, Calico, Essex Green, New London Burgundy, Hale Navy.
  • Early Victorian rooms can go pale pink and iridescent white (Dimity, Calluna, Great White); parlors can go white and gold.
  • Avoid: greige, chalk white trim, eggshell everywhere, pure black.
Ceilings
  • Ceilings are high, nine feet or more, and finished flat in distemper.
  • Reception rooms take a plaster cornice and a ceiling rose aligned to the chimney breast center; bedrooms and service rooms get the minimum.
  • Cornices can be picked out in colour; the paint is reversible.
  • Papered ceilings with borders and corner blocks are correct for parlors.
  • Avoid: popcorn, coffers, exposed beams, flat drywall with no cornice.
Wall details
  • The tripartite wall: dado from the skirting to 3 or 4 feet, set by the chair back; fill above; frieze from the picture rail to the cornice.
  • A high wall with a narrow frieze needs a deep dado.
  • Lincrusta or a dado paper below the rail; wainscot in oak or painted pine also works.
  • Stencilled or hand painted borders above the wainscot and at the ceiling edge are period.
  • Avoid: shiplap, board and batten, half wall tile, flat walls with no rails.
Furniture
  • Parlors call for a carved suite: two sofas, two armchairs, four side chairs in matching silk, a center table and an etagere, in rosewood, walnut or mahogany.
  • Libraries take Gothic Revival high backs; bedrooms take Renaissance Revival or faux bamboo.
  • Aesthetic rooms add ebonised art furniture with flat decoration and castors.
  • Rooms were crowded and heavily upholstered.
  • Rosewood today is best done as a graining finish on pine; reclaimed stock or a substitute species can also work.
  • Avoid: low modern sectionals, tapered leg mid century, raw wood slabs, matching sets from one catalogue.
Textiles
  • Upholster the suite in one silk.
  • Window drapes are heavy and lined, trimmed with corded silk fringe and tassels, and layered under a lambrequin or cornice.
  • Damask on walls and seats; peacock feathers, lilies and sunflowers on Aesthetic prints; Liberty style Indian silks for lightness.
  • Mantel covers carry fringe and embroidery.
  • Avoid: linen slipcovers, bare windows, performance polyester, sheers alone.
Rugs
  • Lay a bordered Brussels carpet or, in reform taste, an Oriental rug over parquet.
  • Patterns are dense and coloured: cartouches, scrolls, florals on a pink, red or olive ground.
  • Aubusson flatweaves fit the French leaning parlor, with examples dated 1850 to 1900.
  • Avoid: jute, flatweave neutrals, shag, oversized abstract rugs.

Where to start

Real paint colors and products, so you have something specific to take to a paint counter or a showroom.

Wall paint
Farrow & Ball Saxon GreenMid Victorian, with Parma Gray and Citron
Sherwin-Williams Rookwood Dark Red SW 2801Dining room, with Billiard Green SW 0016
Sherwin-Williams Deepest Mauve SW 0005Aesthetic plum, with Calico SW 0017
Benjamin Moore New London Burgundy HC-61Red violet brown, library or hall
Benjamin Moore Essex Green HC-188Hunter green, study
Farrow & Ball DimityEarly Victorian pale pink, with Calluna and Great White
Flooring
Quarter Sawn White Oak StripRay fleck, shellac or satin finish
Oak Parquet, Walnut BorderHerringbone or block, 1/2 to 7/8 inch
Encaustic Geometric Hall TileRed, buff, black, 6 inch module
Carpet
Brussels Wool LoopLooped worsted, five colours, bordered
Bordered Carpet SquareInside a three foot parquet border
Slab stone
Marble, HonedMantels and hearths, neutral cleaner, impregnating sealer
SlateHearths and mantels, plain or marbleized
Granite, PolishedKitchen counters only, penetrating sealer
Tile
Minton Style EncausticInlaid clay, unglazed, hall floors
Clé Cement Tile, 8x8 Grande, Matte5/8 inch, hearth and entry rated
Red Quarry Tile, 6 inchKitchen and scullery
Glazed 6 inch Square, Hand DippedBath and kitchen dado, celadon, olive, cream
Hardware finish
Unlacquered BrassAges in place, House of Antique Hardware Un-Lacquered
Antique-By-Hand BrassHand applied, not lacquered, keeps aging
Antique Brass finish sample
Antique BrassFactory aged, consistent
Lighting
Chancery 5 Light ChandelierBrass gasolier form, etched open top shades
Antique Gasolier, RewiredOriginal period fixture, electrified

Finish samples are shown on cabinet hardware, so the metal reads true. Finishes without a sample are ones we have not photographed yet.

The architecture underneath

A lot of what makes a room read as this style is in the architecture, before any furniture comes in.

Tripartite WallDado to 3 or 4 feet, fill, frieze above a picture rail, cornice
High Ceilings with Cornice and RoseNine feet or more, plaster cornice, rose on the chimney axis
Bay WindowFull height timber sash bay, shutters inside
Four Panel Doors, Bold CasingsBolection mould, glazed upper panels at the entry, cast brass sets
Pocket Doors Between ParlorsOversized, in heavy casings, open for entertaining
Grand Hall StairTurned balusters, carved newel, decorative spandrels
Fireplace in Every Reception RoomMarble or carved wood mantel, iron grate, tiled cheeks, overmantel
Encaustic Tiled Hall and PorchGeometric field, bordered, laid from the front door

What to know about the materials

A few materials this style uses need more care than they look like they will. Worth knowing before you choose them.

PineIt blotches. Pine takes stain unevenly, so it is either painted or handled with a gel stain, and you see it on the real board before it is ordered.
MarbleMarble can etch. Lemon, wine and tomato can leave dull marks, and sealing does not stop that. A stone pro can polish the marks out, and a honed finish hides them better. Plenty of people like how it ages. If you would not, we will steer you somewhere else.

If you are working on a house and want to see what this style would look like in it, set up a time with Jeid Studio and we can go through it with your answers in front of us.

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