Modern Victorian Decorating

Victorian Style

• Victorian houses ranged from simple workers' cottages to magnificent homes bursting with displays of wealth and opulence. The first step in planning Victorian decor in a modern home is to determine how slavishly you want to adhere to the style. You can go all-out to reproduce a Victorian home complete with stuffed animals, hand-crafted antimacassars and an aspidistra in the window, or you might be satisfied with a few key architectural details such as a dado/chair rail, and a slate or marble fireplace.

Reproduction Victoriana

• Reproduction Victorian hardware, furniture and wall coverings are readily available, making it a straightforward task to decorate Victorian-style. Furniture was ornate and over-stuffed in "public" rooms, but plain and simple in "private rooms," such as kitchens and servants' quarters. You can give a modern kitchen a Victorian feel by replacing cabinet handles with brass reproductions, filling open shelves with mismatched china, hanging pots and pans from a ceiling rack and displaying naive folk art paintings on the walls. Moldings provide another way to add Victorian detail, and there are many reproductions on sale, from ceiling roses to corbels to deeply detailed cornices.

Faux Victorian

• Victorians were very fond of paint effects and heavy wall decoration. They gilded and scumbled, marbled and stencilled. Luckily, all these techniques are in use today, and there are kits available at hardware stores that will take you through a specialized paint effect step-by-step. If painting isn't your preference, then look for flock, damask and embossed wallpapers. Late Victorian-style was heavily influenced by the designer, William Morris, who produced floral and organic-looking printed wallpaper designs. These patterns are still in production.

Floors

• Encaustic tile--small, patterned mosaic tiles--were often laid in hallways, right through the front door all the way to the garden gate. Encaustic tile is available today but is expensive. An alternative is to lay black and white checkerboard tile in hallways, kitchens and high traffic areas. Victorians loved carpet and the more highly patterned, the better. Choose floral or oriental designs with a faded look. If you prefer hard floors then have a few rugs scattered over dark, painted floorboards.

Color

• The Victorians were fans of deep, rich colors, particularly ruby red, deep gold and forest green. Manufacturing constraints meant that purple and blue were not widely available until the middle of the 19th century. White was not used in homes because smoke and soot from open fires soon turned it dull and dirty. If you prefer your modern Victorian home light and bright, use deep colors as accents, then paint walls a rich cream, pastel green or light yellow to offset the darker colors.

Fabrics

• Fabrics were heavy and highly patterned. The Victorians were not afraid to mix patterns and fabrics in profusion. Choose darker colors for winter drapes, then replace them with lighter, floral fabrics in summer.