Why Victorian Houses Look Like They Do

hey guys brent old build show talking today about the industrial revolution now why would i talk about that right i'm talking about that because we're going to study victorian architecture but victorian means gothic revival italianate second empire queen anne da all these different styles that are part of that victorian era but to understand you know how we get there we got to look at the industrial revolution and how the handmade goes to the machine made and how our parts and pieces and how we build our houses completely changes today on the build show [Music] okay so victorian right what what why is it called victorian well queen victoria is on her throne in england so it's after that victorian style that's why it's victorian um it's that era okay but what's happening in america is that and all over the world really as we're going through the industrial revolution and the industrial revolution is really what changes and makes the victorian possible okay we're traveling more we're seeing more of the world you have these inspirations you have an egyptian revival right you have these persian revival you have all these kind of weird revivals that come that happened during the victorian era and it's because of travel because the world's expanding because of railroads right all those things are allowing people you know 200 years ago people never left their town right they never traveled and all of a sudden after the grand tour there's touring companies where you can actually go tour to the world right um that happens steam ships that happens because of industrial revolution so the queen vic the victorian style is a style we're going to get into okay but first we have to understand how we got there now look if you look at this house okay this is a second empire house right look at the entry hall here okay an explosion of wood right um carved wood or nate wood all kinds of different shapes all kinds of different ornamentation notice too this is stain grade wood right you don't have stain grade wood pre-industrial okay we'll talk about that all the ornamentation on the outside right we are able to build this because of the industrial revolution because of the way the building changes and the way the machinery changes the way we build and if you think about it as far as running a molding okay this is a uh crown okay crown molding plane now that peg okay that hole you put a peg through it and you tie ropes to it now why do you think you did that because you you hired the the young apprentice right to put the rope around his chest and push you and carry your blade across a piece of wood okay because to to plane a five inch wide piece of pine okay with a molding plane like that took a lot of strength and you weren't just gonna push your hand through it right you needed help sometimes they had horses do this stuff right so think about when the plane mill came on the steam plane mill came along and that piece of knife actually spinning really fast not only can you plane pine very fast but you can plane oak and walnut and cherry and all these wonderful woods now this is 1899 and this is a stanley 55 okay basically it's a molding plane you see all these different cutters here where you'd actually take this plane and make your own moldings this is the end of an era okay this this you know doesn't happen doesn't go on very well because planing mills can can uh plane so much faster and easier now let me just show you what's happening during this period i did a little map here i'm just going to talk about all the crazy things that are going on in this you know 40 50 year period let me show you what's going on in this you know 50 60 year period of time that is victorian in the cl you know dynamic change that happens right here okay so 1840 to turn off the tv 1848 okay i showed on instagram last week the uh this planing mill right lawrence's molding playing mill patented 1848 um all these greek revival and gothic moldings look at 30 percent less than hand labor right they're they're advertising that they're uh uh that is less expensive than doing it by hand now the steam planing meals are happening in kind of this area of time right here you have the civil war right so uh that's into 1865. the the rise of the railroad cannot be kind of emphasized enough now railroads are happening back here but you know really railroads as far as uh going around the country happens and just just explodes in this period of time that means more travel that means people are moving around more right you have planing mills really because of the civil war if you think about 1848 that's where the steam planning mill was kind of started i've got a couple of pamphlets and catalogs from the 1840s in new york now smaller cities wouldn't have a steam plane mill only big cities baltimore and i think is one of the ones i have in new york right they have steam planning mills smaller towns wouldn't have that so this isn't happening everywhere but if you think that industrialization is starting here right it really doesn't happen until after the civil war and most of the middleware catalogs that i've got from that period all start 1868 66 i think is curtis but the the planing mills right the large ones that begin to make doors windows moldings starts kind of right here so the industrialization of woodworking kind of happens in that period railroads allow things to expand much farther um so framing think about framing before here you were timber framing a house okay now timber framing as you may know is where you take huge logs right and you are joining them together like a big piece of furniture stick framing i think was invented in chicago in the 1850s or 60s it really takes off after this point it's first it's balloon framing but uh this is dynamic okay timber framing used to take skilled laborers who are practiced in timber framing to to build a frame know how to put it together know how to make it last stick framing right there's no joinery all you're doing is taking a nail and driving two boards together a much simpler easier less skilled labor way of building right dramatic change uh soft woods versus hardwoods i talked about this work easier um hardwoods the planing mills allow you to run hardwoods it's the reason why these victorian houses victorian mansions have oak and maple and mahogany and walnut and all those luxury hardwoods that used to be exclusive for furniture are now available inside the homes of these houses okay the other thing you have the rising middle class right this whole thing the rise of the cities happen at this time people going in for factory jobs and all of a sudden you have this uh rising middle class who can afford more houses design changes okay you have uh over here remember we were talking about asher benjamin before we're talking about his his books and those plan books right were very influential okay as far as how design happened you had these architects giving plane books handing it down to carpenters after this period with pulp paper and everything else you have the ladies home journal right so a magazine right is um journal is uh offering house plans in their in their monthly magazines right and so all of a sudden design's much more accessible doesn't mean it's good design right but design is more accessible so you have all these different things going on standardization right back here because it's a handmade era right everything's custom right everything is uh um you know unique to that house or unique to that builder over here right this is this is custom right over here you have standardization where um one of my books in the 1890s okay basically standardized the molding catalog okay the universal molding catalog and they collected all these patterns and profiles and all the mill firms that starting out here were selling the exact same moldings everywhere so you get the same bowl in chicago that you get in fort worth right standardization is taking place you no longer have regional ideas do you see this kind of crazy right that all of these things are happening building is changing right houses are going up faster um the the it's more accessible right i mean the every man house in 1780 is completely different from the one in 1920 right it's just completely different so all these changes are happening because of industrialization and the reason why those victorian houses look the way they do is because machines enabled them to have them right the carved brackets the huge carved brackets um realize that all the machines that we use in our shop today molders planers uh band saws uh scroll saws duplicarvers we don't have difficulty but they're available today they were available in the 1870s so uh the brackets and the carving and the other things that were happening on these houses were mechanized and were actually fairly cheap one reason why those victorian houses look the way they do is because they could you know what i mean by that they they were able to um there's almost look what we can do oh my gosh we can do anything and they did so anyway industrialization changes building and you need to understand that because when we go look at these rooms and we start building these rooms we're going to pick up moldings you're like holy moly that's a huge piece of wood right they could right look how big that base is look at the the profile of things yes that's right they could and so you're going to see this ornamentation in this detail that changes the way we build and completely changes how a greek revival to a gothic revival to a queen anne changes and we're going to be studying that in the coming weeks when we dig into that so at the beginning of this video we talked about how the industrial revolution changes architecture and to study victorian right to study the victorian style with the gothic revival and the italian and the second empire and all the different styles we had to understand where what happened right what happened to technology that enabled this so let me just show you some of the things we'll be looking at some of the things we'll be talking about in the coming weeks this obviously is gothic revival right you see the barge boards ends and you know that kind of scroll work and that kind of detail is all machine made it it just wouldn't been made by hand this is the italianate style the italianate style you can recognize it because of the brackets under the eve okay so very popular styles all over the uh the northeast this is a second empire now second empire is a reference to the french mansard was the french architect who kind of invented that mansard roof and so uh anyway this is kind of the french influence remember we're traveling globally now i told you there was an egyptian revival and a persian revival in the victorian area so it's no doubt that we have some french influence it's called a stick style right or a carpenter gothic sometimes it would be called so this is a stick style of architecture notice all that wood right queen anne queen anne wow look at all the the parts and pieces and the crazy movement the turrets almost always on queen and houses you have a turret like this so again explosion of woodwork explosion and millwork and then lastly we have the shingle style right the shingle style was uh obviously because there's shingles covering the whole you know body of the house very popular in the 1890s out on the coast uh beach things newport uh mckeem meat and white were very uh good in fact this style is still very popular uh wade actually just built a shingle style house out there on uh in rhode island so all this victorian architecture right these are the things we're gonna be you know looking at and studying in the coming weeks and months as we dig into this style of architecture i hope it's not confusing right because you have all these different styles of architecture with that are called victorian right and yet they're different styles right so what you have is the victorian era right after the industrial revolution revolution um you have the victorian era and so within that time period you have these different stylings now they have uh similarities right how they are built the kind of ornamentation right so they're they're all victorian architecture but there's different types and styles it's really the only period where you have so many different styles within an era but this victorian era right and victorian architecture is different unique we'll be getting into that and studying that i'm brent hall follow me on instagram facebook thanks for watching

Channel: Brent Hull

Views: 14,209

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Id: _vshJBh6YEE

Length: 13min 26sec (806 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 11 2021