I own one. Two years ago I had to completely replace the columns, foundation boards, etc. Water splashes onto it and gutters would ruin the look. It's lovely, but the upkeep is non-stop. And don't get me started on the plumbing, heating, roof, attic, septic line, wiring and damp basement. I love it.
@@evilAshTheDog Love these houses, masterpieces, so much detail, the workmanship, so beautiful! I've worked with wood all my life, to take plain pieces of wood and to make something to enjoy , I have a house built in 1900, foundation is stone 10" wide, walls 6" been here 45 years could never imagine living anywhere else. and it's a corner lot, about 25 feet from the curb, on a hill 6' higher than the sidewalk .
Yeah, how do you recognize US Americans in Europe? They are fascinated by our buildings. It goes as far as them acting as if these were built for tourists, not 300 years old 😂
Most people back then didn't live in those "old style homes". Homes for the average person were always mass produced. It is just the mass produced homes or even slums of 150 years ago have mostly been demolished.
@jouaienttoi actually, the cheapest buildings here, including ours, were wood frame which the owners filled with clay and straw themselves. 400 years later, that's still standing. Cheap can be durable, it is just the modern materials that break too fast ;)
@@alis49281In germany we call what u mean Fachwerkhaus. And it was expensive back then. Upper class business owners and farmers build these, mostly by themselves. But the materials (these big wooden frames we call Bohlen) were expensive. If u compare how many people these housed and compare it to today u see the difference. It is nearly impossible to compare something like this because the society was completely different and we loved different. I myself live in an apartment of a 300 year old house in a bigger city, was a village back then. After then war the damaged walls would be filled up with dirt, broken bricks and clay. I really hate to attach something heavy to the walls but the house is beautiful.
Hell, why can't they build schools like they used to? Elementary and high schools used to be architecturally traditional, but since I was a kid, back in the late 60s and 70s, schools have been built to look like prisons.
@@samr.england613 Ah, they're just getting the kids ready for their future as craftsmen in the prisons' sweatshops. *cough* Sorry, I meant the prisons' "vocational & rehabilitation programs".
My wife and I bought a 1920 craftsman because we feel the same about modern housing. Our house needs work and we've been doing revocations bit by bit but even though it's not perfect I'd rather have our old house with worn original features that were built to high quality standards than a pristine new house made of cheap materials.
Found my way into a Queen Ann Victorian home in So Cal built in 1888. At first, it was a bugger to repair and maintain. But now, 7 years in with most big restoration tasks behind me, I’m jazzed to be living in a piece of history.
I grew up in New England and I moved from Connecticut to New York and one of the best things about living in both states are all of the old Victorian and Gothic style homes. And I have been lucky enough to live in a few homes that looked very much like the house from 1890 in the thumbnail to this video. From the soild hardwood to the details in the crown molding and stair cases, the turrets with large windows on 3 sides. It's all amazing. One house I lived in even had a stained glass window in one of the upstairs hallways. Plus there was a large bedroom that had a smaller room off to the side that was inside the turret, we called that room the study, and I loved sitting at the desk in there and looking out all 3 of the large windows that was located up on the 3rd floor. Made me feel a little bit like a royal princess, looking down on the city and seeing everyone going about their day. These new homes are just a nightmare! I could not imagine having to live in a place with an open floor plan like that and not have dedicated rooms for specific activities. Our human brains don't function well with that type of space, it's just harder to stay organized especially if you have a family and then you got the kids wanting to have a playroom and the adults want to have a home office or something and it becomes too much of a hassle. People do better with dedicated rooms for certain activities. I know the real reason for these open floor plans and losing the hard wood and details is obviously money, since it's so much cheaper to use less quality materials but damn! These new houses are just awful!
A practical reason for small rooms also was heating. If you only have one fireplace to heat a room, a smaller room is easier to keep warm, as there's less air to warm up.
The middle class in the US at the turn of the 20th century was not as large and far reaching as it would become after WWII. The number of 2 bedroom 1 bath homes would stagger the imagination. Houses with 4-6 bedrooms weren't as common as one imagines based on what has survived after 120 years. Urban renewal wiped out 1000s of these small cheaply built low quality homes.
So one must ask, “why during an era of wood heating would anyone build something like this regardless of how much money they had?” What we’ve been told about these places is a lie. They were built by the millennial kingdom saints during the 1000 year reign of Christ. That’s why they do not make sense in our modern world. Although this may seem like a wacky idea, if we were taught this as children in school, would it seem wacky now? What’s wacky is a single generation from the 1800s being so brilliant and rich that they literally created and invented everything we use today. Does that make sense?
Our house (traditional wood frame in central Europe) has the chimney in the middle, low ceiling and small windows. After we fixed the holes in the walls, it is very warm, comfortable and easy to heat with that one fireplace. Of course, there probably were 2 fires in the house in the past, because it is not a home without a stove. Some of the smoke was redirected to smoke the pig meat.
Yup. They stripped the old growth forests bare. Most of the problems they blame on climate change are caused by deforestation. Especially drought and wildfires.
There's another important aspect: We used to live in one place and could expect that our kids take over our home and company... All this is gone... The more we have to move around the less we can invest in a home. Then there are other factors, such as an increase in property taxes, and maintenance costs that have driven inhabitants out of their mansions.
Remember that there wasn't a federal income tax until 1912 and the technology of a home in that era was rudimentary. Homes were wired for lighting only. The electrical outlet wasn't invented until1904. In 1900 1% of homes had indoor plumbing.
Not only that, but homes went from a place to live, to becoming an investment for potential profit. So the housing prices have been going up faster than the rate of inflation as a result.
@@cybernoid001 - "Consumerism" has invaded practically everything! Worse, the Home Mortgage became the Common Means of funding a Home purchase, instead of Savings, which meant a "Banker" or "Mortgage Officer" at the Bank, telling us stuff, like "Your Home is your most valuable 'Asset' you'll own!" While failing to inform you that it was the Banks Asset, because you paid them each month, but to you, it came with a "Liability" - that Very "Mortgage" that got you in it! Compared to an Apartment Building, that if you bought it, it was treated as a Business, where its value was determined by the Revenue it Generated, Average Occupancy Rates, and Bad Debt Risks from non paying tenants, instead of "Comps" or "Comparable Property Neighborhood Recent Sales" - which today get "Inflated" by the Real Estate Agents, promising Sellers, to get them "Tens of Thousands over Asking Price" because of their own vested interest in a Higher Sales Price, to drive a Higher "Commission!"
Homes have always been that way. Have you ever heard of mill houses? Victorian homes were the mansions of the wealthy at that time. Normal people couldn't afford more than a shack with a couple rooms.
@@EngNerdGMN Not here in New York, and based on my basic familiarity with historical American residential architecture, not quite throughout the States, either. An average, lower-middle to upper middle class homeowner used to be able to expect or command at the very least color-painted walls and a decently sized front yard with a small fireplace indoors and perhaps an attic. Nowadays, how many houses made today do you see ever have attics? Or cellars? Remember alcoves? Or phone nooks? Archways? How about wood paneling rather than cheap composite recycled garbage (I use the term "garbage" here purely descriptively rather than the crude sense): red wood, cedar, mahogany? What about an actual (lifted) bathtub, rather than the all-in-one units fixed into stand-up showers? There are so many things that didn't require one to be filthy rich to enjoy in a very basic, standard American home, including separated rooms with more specific uses and greater privacy than the zero-privacy, ever-fluid open concept generic and transitory spaces seen now. Zero ornamentation on ceilings, not even minor embellishments of the cheap-looking kind. No molding, trimwork, or geometric plasterwork whatsoever. Not even chandeliers, let alone gasoliers. Nope. Just a cardboard cut-out with white on the inside, a couple of interior walls, and not even facing the correct direction to maximize sunlight or light efficiency.
I think that homes could and should become like IKEA and made in a factory however there's no reason they have to be boring, lack personality and soulless. I agree with the author that we should try to combine what works from old and new.
@@EngNerdGMN I grew up here in SC in a Queen Anne-style victorian/neovic home built roughly 100 years ago and owned by my great-grandfather, who wasn't the original builder but did turn it to what it looked like when he lived there about 13 years ago. Like other QA-style vics, it was the exact opposite of the traits in my original post and is pretty much what first came to mind in terms of a house with character, fine craftsmanship, and high design --- without costing a million dollars to build (though the house sold for $2.8M, according to my grandma --- the daughter of my GGF). Originally built at 1200 sq. ft. and there were apparently no buildings in town and few other houses, and by the late '80s or early '90s, it was roughly 2900 sq. ft. with an added level, garages, and longer driveway and gates with a small orchard and what my grandparents used to call the "ol' man's dustshack", which was basically a decently sized carpentry/wood shop/painting lab slash tools room. I'd get beaten if I took a step in there without permission and did a few times when my cousins and I thought our uncles and grandpa weren't around.
I'm fortunate to still be living in a farmhouse that my grandfather built in 1901. I don't know how long it took him to build it, but it has stood the test of time for 124 years. It has gone through a few renovations, over the years, but it's still standing strong. He passed in 1944, the year before I was born, so I never got to know him, personally. But, the architecture and durability of this old house are a testament to the way homes should still be built, today.
My wife took our 120 year old “Wedding Cake” house and she restored it to a better than original state. It was an absolute mess when we bought it- ceilings lowered to eight foot, blown in insulation on top of the dropped ceilings, nothing up to anyone’s code. It only took us 35 years, and many tens of thousands of dollars. Luckily her father was a master union carpenter, who, while not teaching her directly, allowed her to watch us work. At 70 she is a far better finish carpenter than most professionals! 12” crowns, 10” base with 6” casings. Rosewood floors over the original fir subfloors. Her 35th anniversary present was a 12” compound sliding miter saw. Money is one thing, but these houses are most restored with love.
Your wife sounds amazing, and you must be a catch too for she's still married to you! What wonderful dedication and lifelong labor of love--to your home and each other. So rare these days. It really made my day just reading this.
Good on you sir for being outwardly proud of your wife’s skills! Thats refreshing! Team work is dream work! I’m a cabinet maker & I want to learn raw carpentry. 💜
As you pointed out today's houses are mass produced. In the Victorian era, the homes were multi-generational in that you would have 3 sometimes 4 generations living in the same house.
That's only true for "middle class" homes of today, i.e. rowhouse neighborhoods. The current rich don't live in these, they have multiple home ownership of custom built homes in true swanky areas (not the pretend ones some middle class neighborhoods showcase). These custom built homes are designed to whatever configuration they want it to be.
As a contractor who has worked on old mansions to McMansions, the old structures will always surprise you with a problem. Problems historical societies that run these neighborhoods don't often have solutions for because of the historical aspect trying to work old into new. I understand this completely because I respect the past & their accomplishments not wanting to alter the original owner's vision. The main reasons are what you said - mainly monetarily prohibitive. The other problem almost as important as $ to fund it are the people who are doing the hands-on work. You want craftsmen working on these, expensive large projects with a bunch of experience. Good luck getting all the needed trades to fall into that category on one project, because they are few and far between. Great channel.
True ... back in the day, labor was cheap and materials were expensive. Today, it's the opposite. You need a skilled craftsman to work on the old homes, but back in the day, they were more plentiful, took more pride in their work, and didn't cost so much. Today, it is possible to get craftsmen in the needed trades all on one project, but keep your checkbook out.
Back then a well built home, modest or rich, were built like machines. The whole home was made as best as it could be to handle heat and cold. Strategically placed overkill of big windows in every room with little windows throughout other places to do cooling and cross breezes. Pocketdoors and doors in everyplace to keep and manage heat. I learned to heat and cool the home with food. My home is a middle class edwardian about 1500sqft and it was originally heated by 2 fireplaces and a gravity furnace. I started restoring and using the home as it was meant to be heated and cooled and I save hundreds a month on bills. I put doors back where they originally were to only direct heat where I want to and open windows depending on heat and wind. Sometimes in the summer it can get too humid and hot with just a fan and windows open and I don't have sleeping porches so I had to figure where/how did these people hang out or sleep in heat, it must be the basement. Now I go to the basement to sleep or rest comfy in the summer, its almost like a 15 temperature difference down there. If you restore your home to how it was originally meant to be used and worked it's cheaper than trying to shove a new home into an old home. I'm pretty much off grid even though I live in a neighborhood. It does require more different efforts and strengths than living modern but you get a little workout, pride and satisfaction with every domestic chore because of the work you had to put into it. The only thing I don't like is the constant heating and carrying of water allover the home, it feels sometimes like you just went to the gym.
We have some wonderful historic early 19th century homes in my town, but it is virtually impossible to work on them because they were declared historic and thus everything is $$$ if the plaster wall cracks you can’t just get someone to fix the plaster you have to get a master craftsman that was trained in the school of 18th century design with pedigrees and a career full of experience in order to get them to show up for two hours and plaster a wall for a cost of $10,000 for a few cracks because the historical society won’t allow you to modify a damn thing without months of paperwork and visits to a lawyer to draw up contracts and stipulations and guarantees. We had a 4000 square-foot home on the lakefront on a 2 acre plot, language on the market for over three years without anybody touching it at $250,000 for what should have been a $1.5 million home because if it’s location alone…… because there was roof damage that it led to water damage that it led to one of the upstairs bedrooms walls caving in and the estimated repair cost to put everything back exactly how it was when it was built in 1895 was upwards of $3 million and the historical society wouldn’t let a single paintbrush, be waived unless it was done in the original manner. That home literally rotted out from under itself because no one was willing to invest the millions of dollars to do it the way the historical society demanded. What could’ve been done for 40 grand by modern methods, was astronomically expensive because everything had to be done original
I was hired to demolish a wooden barn from 1901 that was 30x50 because the roof was damaged by a blizzard. The wood was incredible, you just don't see rings this tight today, I saved as much as I could fit in my barn. I made a small fortune selling what I couldn't use to a few craftsmen in the region who will turn much of it into beautiful hand created works like 150 years ago. I use a lot of it myself. Made a ridiculously over built 12x16 shed with it too. It was sad to see it go but one old barn is now part of dozens of custom homes in our area now as well as many word projects I made and sold myself, as well as one permanent structure on my property. In a way I feel like one beautiful buildings demise gave rise to many more. :)
For nearly a decade from 2000 - 2009, I painted and finished custom houses in Calgary Alberta. People would be shocked if they saw some of the houses that are actually still getting built. These builders had carpenters and finishers that only worked for them, and they would build one Mansion a year
just like steam engines. every engine had its own machinist who made every part by hand. little to no parts were interchangeable between machines. when they started standardising stuff and all the craft and know how was gone.
agreed, im an electrician and i have wired 2-5 million dollar homes in the midwest, very nice, some of the most beautiful houses I've seen. in my area we have plenty of houses built around the turn of the century, you can see a wide range of craftsmanship from Victorian wonders to basic af in those 1890's houses. those mansions that are still around from that era are the exception, not the norm. The master wood workers and masons are still around, but not as workers, they make way more hired as the artists they truly are.
Something we've lost by moving from these older designs to modern open floorplans is the functional efficiency of smaller, single use rooms. I mean the mental clarity and efficiency in human performance. Multi-use rooms have to be constantly reordered (cleaned up, etc.) for each new activity. Smaller, single-use rooms can be designed and organized to optimize for their use. Most bathrooms still do this. But imagine how much more productive you could be if each room supported what you are meant to be doing there in powerful and focused ways.
This got me thinking about Japan where one small room is used for many purposes, with things tucked into the walls. This means the space is constantly cleaned and organized. To steel man your argument, I wonder if smaller rooms were left cluttered more often.
@@adamstager53 It's possible. At the same time, cluttered versus set up and optimized for progress could be a matter of semantics. Things are always a matter of trade-offs. But to use your example, tea houses and Shinto shrines are single-use spaces. When one is in them, there's only one reason one is there. That kind of specificity helps the mind to focus and perform the intended task with greater engagement and/or efficiency. I do appreciate your point though. You're not wrong.
It's a bit silly to say this since you're basically saying that having a larger home would be better, which is pretty obvious. The whole point of the multiuse large room is to give a feeling of space when you have too little, while also being useful. It is incredibly wasteful to have a bunch of dedicated rooms that you rarely use and has always been the realm of the rich. Common folk have always used multiuse rooms.
My 1904 Victorian had twelve foot ceilings, pocket doors separating the main living areas, a working dumbwaiter, and a functioning summer kitchen, in the basement. Both kitchens had built-in ice boxes. We retired to Florida. I miss my old house as much as I miss old friends up north. We sold to a young couple that looked a long time for a home with original features. They stay in touch. I taught the how to retract and repair pocket doors before I left. I makes me very sad when I see an old home remodel into a modern home. You take on a lot more responsibility with an old home. An old home is like caring for an elderly relative. The heart you put into it is repaid in spades, but it's not a good fit for most people. I previously owned a 1929s craftsman home, that was a bit of a money pit, but was and still is my dream home. I learned a lot there about fixing stuff. It was worth every cent I put into.
They don't build houses like that because the craftsmanship isn't there. Contractors don't apprentice tradesman anymore. They hire bodies. With a hammer.
Thay do build houses like that. They build houses better than that. Classical, modern, artificial, organic. The thing is YOU CAN'T AFFORD THEM. If you lived a hundred years ago wouldn't be able to afford the houses which are still standing today. America was full of tin roofed hovels or brick and timber tenement firetraps. They were not worth preserving for hundreds of years.
@@lindawojtas4491 They have some pretty sweet houses old houses in Germany, Italy, Argentina... actually a lot of the world now that I think about it. Did they have to import English speakers to build them?
Even though I grew up in this house, I’m always amazed when I come back to my family home. ( that is a Victorian home ) from my modular home. I did not realize what I had growing up. I do now. These homes are so well-built I can’t even put it into words.
The pride in each swing of the hammer and careful intent of each cut and fastener is cast aside in modern mass production and the exponential pursuit of the next dollar.
If you are in the usa , it's not a Victorian home. Victorian refers to the period and places queen Victoria ruled. Queen Victoria didn't rule the usa. We have different names for our periods like "Reconstruction" and "Gilded Age" etc
@diegoflores9237 it's the style. The Victorian STYLE homes are built all over the world. Many Craftsman and Sears & Roebuck kit houses were Victorian STYLE with intricate facia and adornments. You're conflating periods and styles. But also, the Victorian era was during the expansion period and early industrial revolution periods of the United States and Victorian craftsmanship had a huge impact on American architecture when a lot of the structures in reference were designed and built.
As a Brit, I've always been a bit discombobulated that Americans refer to the "Victorian" period, and in a way it's oddly reassuring. "Gilded Age" I've heard of vaguely, and "Reconstruction" is completely new to me. What does it mean? Is it a reference to a move from vernacular to European styles? @@diegoflores9237
I will forever be grateful that my grandparents were able to leave a cash legacy to my family, and that my mother used it to make sure I have a house to live in. My 1908 simple 1.5 story, 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom Craftsman (with partially finished basement and detached 2-car garage) is perfect for my husband and me. There is always something to tinker on, to personalize, or to upgrade. It is solid -- real 2x4s, one piece beams that span the entire footprint -- and it has character!
In older homes, each wall division creates unique rooms that open-up before you like the various scenes in a full length theatrical production, each one with a different feel and import to the plot. An open concept house, however, is simply a one-act play.
@@pavelow235 The only "good" thing about "open concept" is that a parent can be in the kitchen fixing dinner and still keep an eye on the kids in the family room. It's to the point where, some builders are also providing an "open office" attached to the "great room," so the parents can have their computer on their desk and work from home, and still keep an eye on the kids in the family room.
thank you very much for this video! i've been living in older victorian homes for the past twenty years and love it. i also live in a neighborhood where there is a mix of both victorian/edwardian style homes and modern ones, and the difference is striking.
3:33 Truth. Anyone who has the money for a custom home and wants to mimic the proportions of an older home will be very hard pressed to find an architect who understands what every architect knew 100 years ago.
As an architect by diploma, I wanna tell that's an absolute lie. We DO learn about old styles, their rules, proportions, principals, etc. It's not something we use too often, but it's something we must know. At the end of the day, architect is a job. We're not doing victorian mansions because we cant, but rather because we're not paid for it.
Who wants to hear someone doing the dishes as they watch a film? Who wants to cook with all the guests watching? Who wants to cut the number of outlets and wall space (for art, pictures, cabinets, and shelves) in half? Who wants to walk 14 feet to get to every light switch? Who wants parties with even just 15 people to be so loud from conversation alone that everybody there wants to find a quiet place to talk and there isn't one? Who wants to have 20 guests over for a holiday and have them all in the same common room the whole day? Who wants to hear the kids playing in the living room while they try to converse in the dining room? Who wants to struggle to find quiet appliances, since you will now hear the HVAC, washing machine, dishwasher, garbage disposal, refrigerator, microwave, air purifiers, blender, mixer, and everything else all in the same room as the TV, piano, game console, and stereo? I understand that our ancestors had long-houses so the entire extended family and animals could all be heated and cook together in one room by the single grand fire. However, we in the West resolved this hundreds of years ago with chimneys. Modern heating tech makes it even easier to divide the house. Yet, we are being told it is better to live like middle-ages peasants.
@@furtim1 _"we are being told it is better to live like middle-ages peasants."_ I don't know if this a "we are being told" issue. From what I'm hearing, this is what sells. Watch some of those "FixUpMyHouse" shows on TV. If you had a drinking game where you took a swig every time one of the Property Brothers mentioned "Open Concept", you'd be plastered before the end of the show. Yet every time they mention it, the clients' eyes open wide.
@furtim1 My mom was always entertaining. The guests always commented on how cozy and intimate her gatherings were- no matter how large. Women and men sometimes want to break apart and talk about different things. We had an old house that wasn't open concept and I think that people appreciated how this let people go off into different groups while our big living room let us all mingle if that was necessary.
@@uncaboat2399 I hear you. Take my comment as being akin to judging people for wearing bell bottoms or butterfly collars after Madison Avenue and the designers told them to "like it, you hippies! Stick it to the man by buying our moronic attire". Maybe it is like saying "we are being told" to enjoy "modern art" that is little more than splatters or spills, while the people who sell it to the masses use their sales money to buy classic works of art. It is hard to know who is at the heart of this, consumers or designers/contractors, but I think if you asked people if they want their kitchen garbage to be within 10 feet of the dining table, they would say "No!". We are being bent into liking it because it is cheaper to build (way less ductwork, electrical, walls, etc) and being told it is high-end cool and, therefore, actually worth more.
It’s tough to beat the old growth lumber that went into the earlier homes. Now when you go to the box stores for lumber you have to check each board for warpage. The materials that went into older homes were just better.
"You want your wood stable and straight, right? Well, we have to kiln dry it and then plane it flat and straight, so your lumber is all undersized." Meanwhile: * garbage tier warped and awful lumber regardless * Modern lumber sucks.
So true. I watched my parents home being built when they moved to be near the grandkids in 2020, and I couldn't believe the wood that they were using in the build. Some of it even had the bark still on one side of the timber, or a big knot hole in the middle, or crappy pine with pitch dripping from a crack in the wood. Contrasted to their old home, which was built in the 1950s out of straight grained clear Douglas fir. No warping and hard as a rock. All dimensionally true, no bark or partial tree trunk rounding of the edges. Quality of materials have really done down.
Pretty much all the old growth lumber is gone now, and ironically most of it ended up in landfills. Only 1% of the old growth still remains in the province where I live, and it needs to be preserved, not turned into spec houses.
There's a reason why there's no old-growth lumber in big box stores - the older generation cut ut all down except for a few protected areas. Don't blame Home Depot; blame the builders of those fine old houses.
the homes you're showing indeed existed. we have a few like that in my town from that time period. they were lived in by people who owned 15 factories. the average worker back then would have never set foot in a house like that, much less own one.
Years ago I owned a very small one level 1 bdrm Victorian built in the 20's. It wasn't built for the rich, it's ornate features were toned down, it was small, but it was beautiful.
The best decision I ever made was to buy a small 1908 bungalow in 1993. It cost the same as a nice car and it was paid off in ten years. I redid the kitchen and bathroom and added a master bedroom addition, using the same moldings and finishings as the original. You cannot tell it was an addition. I acted as my own General Contractor and that's how you get your vision implemented.
I miss my first small house (mentioned above). Plenty of room for me and the cat and the mortgage was cheap. But my then fiancee wasn't impressed. She built a huge house instead. Borrowed the down payment, too, back before the crash when they were handing out mortgages like Halloween candy. Even with both of us making good money, it went back to the bank. We're buying the house we rented for the ten years since. I would have had my original house paid off long ago and not be in the market when prices are sky high. You were very wise.
Well done! I agree that you need to do it yourself or run the project yourself to get what YOU want. I have done extensive wainscoting in a craftsman style in my house, love the result!
I'm glad no one could tell you had an addiction. That's personal and not necessary for everyone to know. Admitting it, though, is the first step to recovery. Oh... addition! My mistake.
If you have the money, you can build pretty much anything you want. I have friends who built an *authentic* other than modern systems Victorian on the coast of Maine. It cost something like $10M to build a
The problem is the rise of HOAs and strict building codes. Mansions of old didn't get that way overnight. Modern practices make it so that even if you wanted to make your cookie cutter house interesting, some asswipe 51 year old woman would complain about how having a unique porch or painting your house blue would destroy the character of the neighborhood. Her opinion matters only because the HOA only cares about maintaining a certain tax value assessment
HOA's are there for a reason, and this is very off thread. You want a bunch of derelict cars on your n. lawn and old appliances?? No. HOA's are actualy RARE in the bigger picture of housing.
Whats funny about HOA's is that some wont allow pick up trucks or certain vehicles in driveway but then force you to drag garbage cans to front and leave them there all day until you come home if you work 9-5. Two $50 can sit in front of your house but not a $50k or higher truck thats never hauled anything but a fat ass.
@@Kevin_Rhodes The big problem is that everywhere you go to buy a new home, you get a HOA crammed down your throat.......it's all a scam, disguised to "protect home values". What happens when the market tanks? How does an HOA protect from that???
@@TomChilli I was considering buying a 6k sf Victorian mansion (in amazingly good condition) or a 3k sf modern day block of ticky tack crap (spaces about 4 feet away from the next piece of crap). I ran out of time with the other decision maker, but the price for the mansion was about $700k, $500k for the ticky crap. What kind of comparison is that? For me, it was obvious, but the cost of maintaining that mansion would have killed me. Probably cost 100k just to get someone to properly repaint it.
You are confusing homes with location..... There's an abundance of classic old homes that need to be repaired in places like Detroit and Buffalo New York.... That you can afford, yet there's other problems at play when you live in those areas
@@pineappleparty1624 I haven't painted an exterior myself, aside from touchup work. I have bid those jobs out before ($54k on an original craftsman and $15k for a 1980s "craftsman", though the original was probably 2-3x the size). The trouble comes with a home like this in that it has so very many irregular surfaces (carved moldings, crevices, and details) that are tricky to paint properly. Also, the issue with these details on exteriors is they don't drain water well and end up rotting, rot which must be repaired before painting. Another issue is that these fine details can't just be painted over and over without losing their crispness. The paint has to be scraped and sanded out or you end up with a smudgy mess, rather than a crisp Corinthian crown. I suspect that sanding all these odd shapes by hand also increases the price. Lastly, the exterior surface area of a Queen Anne house of two stories (1.5k sf each) will be way more than a boring box house of today of the same interior square footage. So, it requires more gallons of paint. You are also right about the height. The 3rd floor would have needed really high scaffolding.
I get that tastes and aesthetics change over time and that fancier/more complex building comes at a higher cost, but for the love of God why did society decide Gray was a good design choice? Gray floors, walls, appliances, grayscales, tans, and whites and off-whites everywhere, not just in homes but in cars and other buildings. When, how, and why did people come to fear color?
The most prevalent theory is that it's a reaction to advertising. If most of the bright colors we see comes from ads, using those same colors in a resting space like a home can be overstimulating, hence an inclination towards neutrals. (I personally am not a fan of "neutral everything" but I do think this theory holds water)
Because it's neutral. Houses are being sold to new buyers every 5-10 years because people move around so much so it's beneficial to have an interior that is a "blank slate" so that the new buyer can jazz it up how they want to according to their own personality. Minimalism does play a role but it's mostly just a conservative way to decorate a house so it has the most mass appeal and doesn't turn off some picky Karen who doesn't like whatever color the walls are painted.
I think they photograph better for house-flippers. We may never return to the cozy/busy wallpapered rooms of the past, but I do think the time is ripe for a revival of warm earth tones. Why should a suburban home try to mimic the esthetic of an urban loft? Never made much sense.
Short answer: neutral colors re-sell better. Same with cars. Remember 1980s cars with blue, yellow, or green interiors? Good news: looks snazzy. Bad news: here's hoping the second owner will like it too, especially if you went with something wild like purple paint and red interior.
Which is why mid-century modern homes were such a good idea. They couldn't possibly build small, ornate mansions so architects perfected the concepts of simple, clean and elegant.
I don't agree with that. Not all victorian homes were mansions. There were smaller homes decorated in the victorian style . Unfortunately, they were ripped down and replaced with ugly cement structures during the mid 1900s.
You do realize middle class homes back then were built better than today? You can easily find affordable holder homes that were not just “built by rich people of the past”
What kills me is that people are now forced to take 400k loans to live in an white box, and now we’re finding out a lot of these houses are built so cheaply they begin to fall apart in just under a couple decades.
My favorite is mediterranean/ spanish style architecture with tan to beige stucco siding with burnt orange to red tile roof, terra cotta tile floors, arched wooden doors & doorways, arched windows topped off with black wrought iron accents/ works for windows with spanish style amber lights & golden mirror glass windows.
The older houses, especially the mansions, were lovely and built with superb craftsmanship. As an owner of a beautiful little house built in 1900, I have to keep it in shape and tight against rodents and spiders. Luckily my house is a small one, so housekeeping and maintenance is easy. I can see why people who lived in those large Victorian houses had to hire maids and handymen to help keep the home clean and in good repair.
What came to mind watching this video were the Sears Craftsman kit homes that were affordable and full of charming quality details. I think you did a video about them.
@@donnarichardson7214 Didn't their fathers hand down the knowledge they learned, or did the previous generation just leave them hanging? Their parents should have protected trade classes in school too, but they just watched them disappear and didn't do squat about it. It seems gen z had a lack of mentoring from a generation of self-absorbed narcissists that do nothing but whine constantly.
@@donnarichardson7214how can they? Nobody is teaching or apprenticing skills because manufacturing has changed and outsourced largely due to Boomer votes
@@namedrop721 LOL one of the more amusing attempts to blame boomers for things they had no say in. Boomer jobs were the major victims of all the outsourcing since Reagan. Put the blame where it belongs--corporations and their conservative political enablers who have made the vast majority of people in all generations poorer.
I think you nailed. there are so many details in older homes like airflow, plaster and lathe etc sun positioning on land that helped older homes stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter. we lost that with cookie cutter homes that are build with shoddy new growth timber wrapped in expensive plastic that mold
Open floor plans are horrible to heat, cool, and on top of that depending on the size of the home it is harder to have a more homey or intimate feel to them as well.
As a mom of six kids, I can assure you that open floorplans are extremely impracical. When friends show up, I have to clean like crazy because there is no way to hide meal mess and kid clutter.
Open floorplans are EXTREMELY practical for SMALL homes. But you are probably not raising six kids in my 770sq/ft open plan home. The single (like me) couple or couple with a single kid who would be comfortable in my house are not going to make much of a mess. I would not want a home with an open plan great room the size of a ballroom (friends of mine have one that is bigger than my entire house), but I am going to bet that my kitchen/dining/living room is the size of your master bedroom.
Also a mom of 6. We just finished building our dream home, I LOVE all of our walls😂 I love being able to put things away and CLOSED THE DOOR. My joke to the builder was that I didn’t want pancakes with syrup all over, I wanted a waffle 🧇 compartmentalization is an amazing thing.
Different life styles back then. They'd close off rooms to save on fuel. They actually used their fireplaces and their kitchens were non-functional by modern standards. A lot of their "appliances" weren't even built ins. Things like washing machine were on wheels etc. so they cold be stored later.
In order to get the old style homes that I love, I bought a grand 1898 Victorian farm house and fixed it up. But I had to sell it when I got laid off and had to move. One modern house later, I bought a 1980s home styled after the Wren house in Williamsburg. It is one of the very few homes built relatively recently in the Richmond, VA area that has this kind of classic architecture. It was worth the wait and the 18 month search.
As an architect in the profession for 50 years, I bemoam the total loss of asthetic that has befallen our society! The outlook of people who built the house I live in was to build for posterity and to put the care, materials and craftsmenship into their homes, as well as parks and public thoroughfares. The city beautiful movement launched by the incredible impact of the 1893 Chicago's Columbian Exposition touched every city, town and borough on the US! From 1880s to WW 1, hundreds of thousands of houses, public and private buildings, parks and avenues were remade! True most could not afford Victorian houses but all could enjoy the scale, beauty and wonder these built enviroments afforded every citizen! Some how after the great depression and WW2 this sense of beauty and planning was lost to mass produced house and the absolute cheapening of materals and planning. The 1950s through 1970's saw the andolute desecration of of cities where buildings that could stand centuries were destroyed for cheap stick and build architure! Modern architecture born in France and Germany behan with the premise of craftsmen ising modern materials in much the same way as builders and architects did for generation's past. This was all lost somehow in our cheap throw away culture! In Louisville, where broadway once resembled the most beautiful blvds in Europe now looks like it was bombed out and replaced by horrible, contcrete and commercial strip building and parking lots!! Maybe someday people will look at the beautiful relics of their Victorian Heritage and say enough is enough and recapture the creativity of the human spirit and not the mass produced machine!!!
I too believe this will happen! ---a desire to return to the past. People will get tired of the boring world pf cheap/lackluster homes we live in and say "Let's build something beautiful for beauty's sake...and let's start with our homes which are our sanctuaries!'
There is a correlation between peoples beliefs and thinking process that manifests itself in music and architecture. Empty souls create ugly architecture and meaningless music.
In addition to it being a more racist era, more division amongst differing people, probably the divide between the rich and the poor was as great or greater than today.....yes I like the old homes of the 1890s but I don't want to go back to that era😊
Appreciating the beauty of a rich man's home from the outside doesn't mean much when you live in squalor. The wealthy could still build these today but for the most part they prefer other styles. I prefer most people being sheltered from the wind and rain in boring box homes to a few people having beautiful magnificent homes while their cheap labor that lived around them in shit.
Couldn't agree more. Fortunately, I live in a western NY city with a LOT of older housing stock that is beautiful and not excessively fancy so it can be kept up and repaired.
Love this I wish we could bring back more charm and beauty. I live in a cookie cutter home and while I am grateful to have a home, I wish I could add much more artistic touches to it!!
My parents first house was a duplex in a multistory 1920 style brick house. The whole house by itself, would have been a good size, but the half house we had was pretty small. Each of the rooms were very small. Only one bathroom. Separate garage, in back at the end of the yard. We had to walk through the snow to get there. Later on they bought a modest Mcmansion. We had a lot more space, more bathrooms, more closet space. Attached garage. It was a better setup. Ideally they can make something with the space of a mcmansion, with more the character of an older home. They of course do that now for richer people. Their Mcmansions are more individually designed and have more character.
Im not fond of open floor plans, when you have dinners every one can see your dirty pots and pans . I live in a larger 50s ranch style house and i really enjoy it
I agree with you, but I completely understand the appeal of an open floor plan. When I babysit my nephews, I can see almost every inch of the finished basement and 1st floor from anywhere on those respective floors, and I wouldn't want it any other way if I had young kids of my own.
@@zelendel when my kids were little it was nice to be in the kitchen loading the dishwasher, ( seemed like a never ending job in those days) and could just turn around and check on my daughter, just didn't like always looking into the kitchen from the Great room, we had bought a odd 1974 house built with a great room. I inherited my parents larger 50s ranch style house and the kids are grown
I live in in historic home built before the Civil War. There is so much character in its unique design and technically wasted spaces that people marvel at the design work. They're impressed by the multiple fireplaces, the heart pine wooden floors, the high ceilings, stained glass windows and walnut staircase. The rooms have individual functions,, The parlor, the dining room, the den / library,the kitchen and porches all on the first floor. All separated by doors these were necessary at a time when heating individual rooms was typical. I personally feel that modern house plans with open concept living is probably just easier for the Builder or contractor to build and cheaper for the individual buying the house. But once we are convinced that this is the popular style we want to live in the price goes up. It is similar to the idea that we are now convinxced that everyone needs an SUV or a pickup truck not a car. It all comes down to individual taste, needs and economic convenience. We could all due with a little bit of imagination.
Most people didn't live in those big "Victorian" homes in the "Victorian" era. They lived in much humbler abodes. Now, as then, you get what you pay for.
Very true. And since the Victorian Era was only from 1837 to 1901, many homes after those years took on less grand proportions...as did clothing, styles of living,etc. An example of a lot of character but less grand home was shown in the video of an early 1900 teens year of a simple family home.
Yes. Though I appreciate the effort in this production, I found the opening a bit misleading when its early examples of domestic Victorian architecture were aqll mansions and then cut to a current suburban development, an unfair comparison. There could have been some more everyday Victorian homes in between.
@@John_Fugazzi Yea, they aren't comparing the average house to the average house. Those definitely werent the average owner occupied victorian dwellings. Even then people don't realize homeownership rates were actually
Yes, true. But back in the days (until about 1930s/1940s) even the average apartment building was well designed and didn't lack some ornamentation. With the 1950s the dismal grey boxes of Modern Movement took over, because after WWII they had to build quick and cheap. And now we are stuck with them.
One big reason for the disappearance of those houses is mainenance. All those Victorian Era houses had house keepers, gardeners, chefs, nurses and other staff. It also means that those houses were houses for the 1% - bankers, owners of large manufacturing plants, managers, physicians, government officials. And the houses were not only meant to represent to the passers-by, they had to host large parties, glittering ball nights and receptions. Today, you rather move that to a restaurant or a hotel - they have the staffing and the infrastructure in place. And not much of it was really craftsmanship. Railings were cast iron, wood panels were machine carved, and natural stone was a thin layer covering concrete and brick work. If you look at department store catalogues from the late 19th century, you will find all those design elements pre-fabricated and ready to assemble on your house, including the marble pillar with the Corinthian capital. Many people today don't understand the motivations of Modernism anymore, because they don't know the Gilded Era from experiences, only from the preserved artifacts of the time. One of the foundational principles of Bauhaus for instance was: Build your own design! You can't sketch an idea and then outsource fabrication to some specialist shop. You have to get your hands dirty. Another one was: Show your work! You can't hide your brick wall behind a wooden panel for no other reason than to hide it. The wooden panel has to serve some additional function to be justified. And from there follows the most famous principle: Form follows function. You can't crown a pillar with a Corinthian capital without explaining what purpose it serves there. The most important principle is often ignored completely: Make your design affordable! 99% of people by definition aren't part of the 1%. Your design should cater to the 99%.
I LOVE the older homes, especially the first few that look to be suburban. Unfortunately I’ve never lived anywhere I could have had something so lovely. But, I do love your videos showing all the wonderful craftsmanship of a bygone age. Thank you.
I grew up working on these types of houses in the San Francisco Bay Area as my father was an old school contractor. Similar to vintage automobile restoration. If it's all there, great! It's when you have to locate parts from that era the money aspect really kicks in. Also, you must realize the design did not take into account modern convenience items that require way more power than was needed back then. Restoration is extremely rewarding! Just please do your homework. When you calculate the cost, double it and add 23%. This method will get you close to the actual numbers. Trust me!
Back when I was a student in primary school we had the chance go for an excursion to the old Victorian era mansions here in Melbourne Australia, Rippon lea estate and Werribee mansion were both beautiful and magnificent in the architectural details.
The old homes in this video were the MANSIONS of their day and not ordinary houses, so the budget was not ordinary. To compare these types of homes to your typical 199sq ft track home doesn't make any sense.
@@ROForeverMan by your logic barracks, factories, plants and pretty much everything else related to the common people, was made with artistic purpose in mind. Which is not. Most of these building are not present today exactly because they're not considered art, or, well, even just worth saving.
I own an 1895 Queen Anne Victorian house, even with the higher heating and cooling and constant maintenance I think it’s 2x as solid of a structure as the 2004 house I owned previously.
Constant maintenance sounds suspiciously not solid. 20 years ago is a LONG time ago. There is a reason you don't see many 100 year old homes. They simply rotted away due to poor upkeep. Water destroys all.
@that’s why you need to perform maintenance on them, keeping good coats on paint on stuff is crucial. These old houses have wooden everything that needs to be maintained and repainted quite often. Brick needs to be tuckpointed trusses and joists periodically reinforced. The 2004 home I bought in 2017 was already having major foundation issues thank god I got out of that house before it got worse.
Much of the ornamentation in the Victorian Era was actually mass produced. In fact, the Arts and Crafts movement of the early 1900s was formed as an artisanal backlash to the widespread availability and adoption of mechanically-produced ornaments.
My friends and I have built our own houses from scratch using high quality local materials , original designs and some artistic touches. Each house is totally different.
I firmly believe in a past life I must have lived in one of those beautiful artistic homes. Those are really the only ones I truly love The funny part is you could buy a kit from sears catalog to build these homes
Yes and Montgomery Wards also sold kit homes. I grew up in a MW kit home and as an adult found the floor plan of our home! It was magical to find! And not all those kit homes were grand. Some, like the one I grew up in, were small, had no bathroom, little to no storage space, poor insulation, drafty windows. But there was still more style than some homes of today :)
I live in one of the more modest Sears Homes... 1350sqft foursquare built in 1917... the house is a box, and has unusual asthetics... very 'modern' woodwork simple craftsman style, but has spindles on staircase but very square newel post... the house is a simple box, but has stylish gothic arches between rooms and 2 panel interior doors.... upstairs the trim wasnt stained but painted and seems more ornate and farmhouse looking, something you would see 10-20 years prior... its because it wasn't in fashion anymore and they used cheaper older style trim in private rooms... I also don't have any built-ins or a fireplace or special nooks... everything was built very simple, but still looks rich... My front porch and siding had the only design ques, and they have long been hidden under vinyl and a rebuilt front porch (a tornando hit my neighborhood in the 60s) and lost its original exterior charm when rebuilt, although is still a quaint house. Even being more of a stripper model house, the wood floors throughout and beautiful trim make the house so much nicer feeling than newer homes... I would be retrofitting old trim into my house if it was a new modern home
@@uscitizen898 You would see the same problems on the mansions of that era. The kit homes I have seen were at least constructed with better quality framing than anything seen today!
It took highly skilled workers, quality lumber, stone and other materials, designers with a beautiful vision for the WHOLE property and a lot of money. Today even if you spend over a million you're lucky if the nails even hit the studs, which are probably warped or full of other defects and be grateful if they actually covered ALL the exterior of the home and didn't leave a child sized hole for animals to crawl into your house.
You are mostly comparing apples to oranges. Most of the Victorian homes featured were for the affluent whereas the mass produced homes are for the general public. My grandparents home built in the late 1800's, for instance, had a lot of quality woodwork but the rooms, the architecture, and the functionality were designed for a working class family not too much different from todays standards.
I’ve lived in what were workinmens’ homes in PA and pineapple plantation workers’ homes in Hawaii. Both better built than US crapola in the Seventies and beyond. And million dollar McMansion for the wealthy now are garbage.
Very true. There are newly built homes for the rich being put up today that would rival and blow away anything from back in the day. But the entry point of ownership isn't going to be anywhere what a typical "middle class" person would ever be able to afford over their whole lifetime.
@@ChrisLeonard-np7lh but these old homes that were shown fit almost all the things that are attributed to Mcmansions? from wikipedia: (One real-estate writer explains a successful formula typically found in McMansions: "symmetrical structures on clear-cut lots with Palladian windows centered over the main entry, and brick or stone enhancing the driveway entrance, plus multiple chimneys, dormers, pilasters, and columns-and inside, the master suite with dressing rooms and bath-spa, great rooms, breakfast and dining rooms, showplace kitchen, and extra high and wide garages for multiple cars and SUVs."[12] These houses also typically have 3,000 square feet (280 m2) or more of floor area,[13] ceilings 9 to 10 feet (2.5 to 3m) high or higher, a two-story portico, a two-story front door hall (often containing a large chandelier), a garage with room for three or more cars, many bedrooms (with some having five or more), many bathrooms, extensive crown molding and related features, and lavish-if superficial-interior features.) literally, other than the parts of the house that cater to cars, which werent widely adopted in the 1800s, and certainly would have introduced those architectural additions into homebuilding, almost all of it fits the things this guy is praising.
Furthermore, in the U.S. a large proportion of the normal working-class Victorian homes have not survived, leaving mostly the cream of the crop. There's a massive selection bias in comparing the best of 140 years ago with the average of today.
Oh, the irony of the few seconds at 1:44 to 1:57. The narration argues about the shift from artisan craftsmanship to mass production while showing the exterior and interior of a Sears Craftsman home. The plans and materials were literally sold via the mail order Sears catalog.
Because modern materials are only built to a minimum standard. Older construction was built more forgiving and with more excess capacity. Craftsmanship is no longer valued unless super rich. Now the homes are spackled together to hide all the flaws the trades cover for each other.
@@uscitizen898 I think the actual 2 x 4 of old growth wood was probably about 3x stronger and more stable than modern "2x4" (really more like 1.5 x 3) studs that are almost entirely sapwood and springwood.
@@furtim1 of course they were stronger, you can see it in the grain of old wood. The difference is that the wood was used from old growth forests and would be unsustainable to carry on doing so if we continued. Yes the new 2x4, are very comparable but the housing market would be far worse than it currently is without our current practice.
Great video. After Covid, open plan houses have been losing their appeal. People couldn’t get away from each other except to their bedrooms. And with some who were working from home, meetings/zoom calls and the general need for a quiet place to work was hard to accommodate.
Amen to that. My wife and I built an “open concept” house in 2019 and moved in the week they shut the country down in 2020. They were all the rage at the time and we thought it seemed great. After spending almost 5 years in it I hate it. We have 2 kids and built a 3 bedroom house. It’s 2000 square feet. We built what we could afford. Actually more than we could afford but that’s another story for another time…. Anyway I hate this house. There’s ZERO and I mean ZERO privacy. You are together as a family 100% of the time. There’s not even a corner to hide around. It sucks.
I was watching some colourized ww2 footage a while back and one of the big standouts i noticed from it was how much better looking all the houses used to be back then. Makes sense that as they need to build them faster for a growing population that one of the sacrifices would end up being the style and luxery look of the houses
When I was in high school, a project was to have the students design their dream home and property. One I thought would be cool was a Victorian House with a turret next to a busy waterfront. I'd make it a personal quest to get a surplus submarine periscope and install it in the turret to watch the ships go by.
So true, it is simply rich's homes are better than commoner's. Even today, owning a Victorian style home will cost an arm and leg to keep up with the maintenance.
..THANK YOU for your informative post. In my experience restoring a 1905 upper middle-class 3600 sq. ft. home in Milwaukee WI that cost $11K to construct (while most homes construction cost back then was 1-4K), the current cost of quality materials and lack of experienced contractors prohibit/ed a comfortable project plan. That said, residing on a registered historic street, McKinley Blvd, the city and state provided tax incentives to assist homeowners in their quest to preserve these unique historical gems that will... cannot be replaced as constructed. To understand, and feel the essence of what these homes represented then, and represent today, is a unique personal awareness worth sharing.
Have you considered contracting with Amish carpenters and cabinet makers? Some of them do travel to do work. They hire drivers. I'm in Wisconsin, so I'm speaking as local experience with them. Naturally, I don't know the extent of your restoration, so I can only offer that as advice. We had solid wood cabinetry made by Amish--oak for the kitchen and alder for the bathroom--and it cost less than what comparable quality cabinets we looked at. There's websites that offer listings of Amish craftsmen, I think Amish in America is one. That said, there's communities all over western WI, along 14, 18, and north of Viroqua and Green Lake county areas, to name a few districts, and some actually have cell phones, ours did, and the contract price is what you pay. No jerk around. And they'll know someone else who specializes in some other type of construction. Our cabinet guy knew a door maker, etc. If you act as your own GC, you can hire them and not worry about a middleman.
@@SpotofTeaPlease ..Thank you for your response. A quick backstory, the original owner resided in the home until death in 1940, having the funeral wake in the dining room. Purchased in 1941 by a local/Milwaukee celebrity astrologer (who had entertainer Liberace as a client here in the house) until her death in 1984/6, then the house was inherited by her cook/companion. The companion could not maintain the home and twice attempted to sell the home via two failed land contracts both within a year or three of each other. Within those 10 years, more abuse/neglect was experienced to the home by these temporary owners then in the previous 85. In 1997 I was contacted by a friend who knew the cook, and her dilemma. After a meeting (a long story in itself) I toured the single-family home. After witnessing the imported carved lion head framed wood fireplace mantel, 17 leaded glass paneled windows (a staircase landing window the size of a side by side refrigerator) one positioned in a interior wall between the dining room and foyer, and decorative floor to ceiling wood columns w/shoulder high wood paneled walled foyer to the second floor, I sought to save, immediately protect this mini mansion as best i could. The slate roof was missing huge sections (not just a single panel here and there though there was that also), and before i was deeded the home, i paid for slate/roof repair to prevent any further wood decay while my ownership was being processed. Stressful, yes, regrets...none. My grain of sand sized personal effort at preserving our, society's, this structures past, by my mission, is a satisfaction i take with me though my life in hopes the next resident will be able to enjoy what i knew was a diamond in the rough. 2025 brings a new year... focus, and moving onto structural repairs, more slate roof attention, exterior bay trim and window wood ledges. I will check out your advice suggestions which again are greatly appreciated. Historic/artistic preservation can easily be overlooked if financial opportunistic situations (stripping out of decorative physical elements/ultra modernizing) are allowed (not including kitchens). Thank you again.
@@501rivetBless you for seeing this beauty and preserving it. Yeah, a slate roof is hard to DIY. I do my own roof work, after getting outrageous quotes from professional roofers who wouldn't even repair the roof decking on my 1952 architect designed home, but my roof was simple wood and shingle. I wouldn't attempt to do slate.
@@erynlasgalen1949 ...i experienced the same repair pricing situations from slate roof contractors. All I contacted presented their business pricing as an "upscale customer" who has this roof option, must be able to afford the hype/pricy charges associated. I was quoted 100K if i wanted the entire roof recovered back in 1998. I chose to have each of four main copper clad valleys repaired ( with slate salvaged or replaced 3 feet on either side of the valley) one repaired each year after, at a cost of approx 6-8K each. I slept better after each year/repair. Fortunately, as mentioned previously, I applied for state historic preservation tax credits (approx 26% of project totals) which helped while/when I was working and filing taxable income. I was also able to find a retired slate contractor who worked on church steeples who charged me a reduced, rate that he felt was fair for his attention to detail/experience. Unfortunately, he passed away 4 years ago. Even today, 2025, flat areas of the roof still need attention. While many in my historic rehab area are not passionate about their home's history (to restore properly), they make thrifty based repairs skirting past notifying Historic Preservation (so as not requiring inspection after "repair"work). My eventual "plan" is to donate the home to the city/Historical Society w/hopes it can be used for that purpose, or be sold to new owners impressed w/the details w/the revenue going back to the Wisconsin/Milwaukee Historical Society for maintenance, or to use. My family has no interest except for any $ provided, so, a no go. BTW, slate repair is not a art, but rather a well documented process. Slate can be repurposed, and once established the repairs are standard procedure. Though no nail guns allowed, each nail on a slate roof gets a humans full attention.
All these beautiful homes were built long before any building codes.....and they have stood the test of time. They laugh at storms while today's homes fall apart in a stiff breeze.
This is incredibly important thinking. I am currently updating a nice house that is very plain vanilla, and I will definitely add some more personal details. Thank you so your insights.
I work in commercial architecture, and went to a very Bauhaus influenced school. I've been working for almost 10 years now, and I'm starting to form and opinion other people may share, but it's really not openly talked about. There is just too much money and power that the industrialization has made. I definetly agree with the ideal of combining newer tech, materials, and techniques with the concept of personal touch. It seems like a very achievable idea - but I'm afraid it may be only an idea. For me, it feels like our entire current system would have to be completely disrupted. But that turmoil could cause so much suffering throughout that I cannot wish it upon us. Sigh. If people weren't as greedy and driven by money, perhaps we could all enjoy some of the finer details like the crafted arts.
Your ideal can happen so don't give up on your dreams. People will eventually get tired of all this "modern day/follow the trends/lackluster designed" homes and crave something that says 'beauty for beauty's sake". As a former interior decorator even over a decade ago, people wanted coziness in their homes. That doesn't mean dark interiors..but they craved rooms where they felt safe, secure, grounded and very family friendly. All those smart homes will have to be updated as the technology advances....or simply as the mechanisms fail to work. ;-) I for one don't want my home being monitored on a smart phone! We even have an old fashioned door bell you pull a string to ring! If I need to see whose at the door before I open it, I peek out a window :) ....and of course we have two wonderful dogs to alert us first. We can and probably will get back to more stylish homes where craftsmanship matters.....when all these newer homes simply start to fall apart. They're not built to last......I dare say even our first home which was built in 1955 will outlast many of today's "slap 'em up fast" homes. I admire your desire to wish for days back to more style/architecture in homes. The Bauhaus school had a lot to teach us as did many other older schools of architectural design. Maybe, just maybe, we can regain some of that. :)
@@uscitizen898 I completely agree about smart home tech! The only things "smarter" in my house are the water heater (whyyy) and the security system. I've bought two new builds (2017 and 2021) and honestly I loved some things about them. I admit I'm a pragmatic designer, so I love some efficiency in plan. I don't like curves and corners that aren't well considered. They end up being wasteful spaces. Our 2021 build is an 1800sf ranch. I really love the layout (I spend so much time online looking at other residential designers and still like mine). I think the smaller (normal??) size means our open kitchen-dine-living feels like it fits and flows. BUTTT my biggest concern is exacly the "slap 'em up fast" methodology. Yes, it's the only way I could ever afford a house, but I don't feel like things are built with materials or methods for longevity. The bones are sloppy and the materials cheapness makes things feel and sound...cheap. Somehow there's a way to make housing for us all achievable while giving people the feeling of "home" that we all want. I'm cynical about our ability to change though. So for the love of all that is, I hope somebody breaks through!
This is a very good video. I would add a couple quick points. In the 19th century and back, most people did not live in the lovely homes we often think of from that period. Class and economic distinctions were much more prevalent. The middle class did not become a dominant part of society until the 20th century. Prior to that, poverty was the norm, not the exception. A broader recognition of labor rights and the income tax were huge contributors to the erosion of both poverty and the ranks of the super wealthy. Yes, evolving tastes, technology and the loss of certain trade skills have contributed to the shift away from those elaborate houses. But how one lives has almost always come down to money.
I agree, this video compares the ornate mansions owned by the rich to modern middle-class homes -- apples to oranges. The rich, during the Gilded Age and now, can build beautiful homes according to the latest style. These homes tend to survive the wrecking ball, so now it seems as if everyone must have lived in a Victorian spec home. Actually, the poor lived in shacks, shotgun houses, tenements -- no fancy ornamentation. The middle class lacked affordable housing options before these efficient cookie-cutter homes were designed. Prior to the 1950's, my ancestors lived with 6 or 8 people under one roof, multi-generations in one modest three-bedroom house. Now, I know many people who have their own house for just 1 or 2 people.
I loved seeing all the examples from the old parts of St. Louis. To further your point, many older neighborhoods have an identity. I immediately recognized Lafayette Square, Compton Heights, and Holly Hills in your video (all inner city St Louis neighborhoods.) However, the suburbs you were showing could be the suburbs of St. Louis, Kansas City, Cincinnati, etc. there's almost no identity to them.
I am in NZ; I was a real estate agent in 1999. I discovered that, house built before 70s in NZ is for one reason, for the master to live in. Built after 70s, are for one reason, for sale. Then who cares, to make $$$. So built very cheaply.
I've had an 1870 Gothic Revival for 10 years. For 20 years before that, I had an 1884 Eastlake Victorian and for 5, preceding that a 27 room, brick Queen Ann. I ❤️ old homes.
There was plenty of mass production in the Victorian era, they just had higher standards. As far as open floor plans, they’re a terrible idea; if one part of your house is a mess then your whole house is a mess. The main problem is that we expect less and have been taught to settle for less.
Open plan is actually more space for less square footage. Love the concept: you can open up the dining or consolidate it, open up the kitchen, get less living room.
I scoured the country to find an open floor plan home in a nice setting. Every house I saw from Oregon to New York felt cramped. What i finally found is only 2000sqft, but feels like a palace because it's mostly one big box, with plenty of light - and a hallway to small bedrooms.
There were plenty of Victorian homes with lower standards too, but they haven't survived, so they go unmentioned in videos like this. This selection bias makes the whole exercise and apples to oranges comparison.
@@justinsayin3979 Yes but, and I've studied architecture all my life, so I'm pretty safe saying this; the lower standards of the Victorian era are probably equal today's normal standards.
I lived in an apartment building in Cleveland built in 1929, a beautiful Art Deco masterpiece, and in Lancaster County PA what had been a house built in 1852. Both in excellent condition. By contrast I lived in a house in CA built in the Seventies that was falling apart.
It’s simple. Those were rich people houses. Lower and middle class houses weren’t as grand back then, same as today. The only thing that has changed is the taste of rich people who prefer a more modern style of architecture nowadays
One big question is why the kind of architectural design and ornamentation that was considered affordable in the 1890's is suddenly considered cost prohibitive in the 2020's. I was of the general impression that productivity and GDP per capita had been increasing since then.
Productivity gains realized elsewhere in the economy, not housing construction (especially our antiquated stick-frame construction). And common misconceptions about wealth and housing… exquisite houses were always limited to the wealthy; now wealth is more concentrated and (related, crime) new mansions are largely isolated on large parcels and/or behind gates out-of-view. My ‘mansion’ - 3-story Queen Anne Victorian, was bought as a handyman nightmare with a modest income. Won bidding war by waving all inspections/contingencies… no regrets tackling this 2nd of 3 handyman nightmares doing most work myself.
@@gr8dvd Good points, just one thing. If you look at working- and lower middle class dwellings from the New York tenement to the German "Mietskaserne", you'll see that in America as well as in Europe, such rentals did not lack in ornamentation or ceiling height, and possibly sometimes with the exception of the aforementioned tenement, they were also generally well built, made to last centuries. What the upper classes had to brag about was more in the veins of expensive building materials and interior spaciousness, not building quality or basic techniques, which should have been essentially the same and equally labour intensive. Just thought I'd point that out. What I would personally be interested in building anew would precisely be this kind of latter 19th century to pre-WWI apartment building that you see (in old photos at least) lining the streets of Paris, Prague, Gothenburg, Riga, Munich and Berlin, and that's what my argument is really about, certainly not mansions for the wealthy or even necessarily private homes. But somehow they keep telling me "it's too expensive", while in fact we were able to do it on a mass scale 130 years ago! By the way, congratulations on your Queen Anne Victorian! Doing most of one's work oneself is certainly a feat.👍
@@somerandomvertebrate9262 Interesting observations. But one reason older tenements were posh was b/c they were originally built for/by the wealthy. As cities declined beginning in the 1960s these architectural gems were ‘handed down’ even abandoned. Urban homesteading where tax defaulted townhouses sold for $1 was an attempt to reverse capital flight. DIY was both financial necessity but also financially & personally rewarding. Background in architecture helped but a 1-day "apprenticeship" each with pro plumber & pro electrician was very helpful. Today’s housing prices are obscene… feel bad for young people starting-out.
Introduction of the income tax and the outsourcing of high paying jobs to foreign nations has reduced our ability as a nation. In the 1880s you could also mail order fine woodwork to adorn your house for not too much money. That was the advantage of the Eastlake architectural style for example. You could decorate your house cost efficiently. When those styles went out of style, it became prohibitively expensive to reproduce.
Thank you for this, This House. I live in a box down the street from beautiful Victorian homes. The prices just for my box are untenable. I like to daydream with TH content!
To a certain degree, this topic is comparing apples and oranges. For most of history, common people did not live in a styled house. If there appeared to be any style in their houses, it was coincidental to the building method. Like for instance, a tutor style house looked the way it did because of the building method. No one was intending for them to be picturesque. These beautiful old homes were built by the wealthy. The wealthy still build elaborate homes. Most are built in modern style. Occasionally, some are built in a more traditional style with elaborate, internal and external details.
I lived in a home that was 90 years old brought my family up in it needed much rehab it was a 30 year project. The neighborhood was where ford, dodge, alger, built homes.
I made a living restoring old homes. And yes, they DO have character. Simply beautiful. But the advantage of modern construction is energy efficiency -- they are tightly built and very well insulated. We can inject insulation into the wall cavities of historic homes, but we can't seal air leaks or stop the thermal bridging across the wood framing members. Today I live in a home with an insulated floor and rigid insulation between the sheathing and the siding, and it sure is nice to have environmental comfort and very, very low utility bills.
I am a fan of Victorian homes. The craftsmanship is undeniably fantastic. I loathe modern anything when it comes to homes or the interior renovations they do and ruin it.
Yes, those people that buy priceless old house and trash the now irreplaceable ornamentations to turn the interior it into a cold science fiction "design". Why can't they do that to modern houses if that is what they like? One owner is all it takes to ruin a centennial or bi-centennial home.
Exactly, @3:00 homes were places of hanging out and gathering. Today we have strip malls and other restaurant style places to gather. I would much prefer the olden days.
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
Old Victorian homes with a wrap around porch are just beautiful
I own one. Two years ago I had to completely replace the columns, foundation boards, etc. Water splashes onto it and gutters would ruin the look. It's lovely, but the upkeep is non-stop. And don't get me started on the plumbing, heating, roof, attic, septic line, wiring and damp basement. I love it.
@@evilAshTheDog Love these houses, masterpieces, so much detail, the workmanship, so beautiful! I've worked with wood all my life, to take plain pieces of wood and to make something to enjoy , I have a house built in 1900, foundation is stone 10" wide, walls 6" been here 45 years could never imagine living anywhere else. and it's a corner lot, about 25 feet from the curb, on a hill 6' higher than the sidewalk .
yes...but had you noticed that in 60s those porches started to vanish? and tv getting cheaper?
@@elfeintwentyfives It was air-conditioning that killed the front porch
@@paulpeterson4216 along with cheap tvs in south people still use porches
Nothing compares to the old style. They were just beautiful.
Yeah, how do you recognize US Americans in Europe? They are fascinated by our buildings.
It goes as far as them acting as if these were built for tourists, not 300 years old 😂
Most people back then didn't live in those "old style homes". Homes for the average person were always mass produced. It is just the mass produced homes or even slums of 150 years ago have mostly been demolished.
@@alis49281?
@jouaienttoi actually, the cheapest buildings here, including ours, were wood frame which the owners filled with clay and straw themselves. 400 years later, that's still standing. Cheap can be durable, it is just the modern materials that break too fast ;)
@@alis49281In germany we call what u mean Fachwerkhaus. And it was expensive back then.
Upper class business owners and farmers build these, mostly by themselves.
But the materials (these big wooden frames we call Bohlen) were expensive.
If u compare how many people these housed and compare it to today u see the difference.
It is nearly impossible to compare something like this because the society was completely different and we loved different.
I myself live in an apartment of a 300 year old house in a bigger city, was a village back then.
After then war the damaged walls would be filled up with dirt, broken bricks and clay.
I really hate to attach something heavy to the walls but the house is beautiful.
New homes are SOUL CRUSHING. They feel like refugee housing no matter the size
Hell, why can't they build schools like they used to? Elementary and high schools used to be architecturally traditional, but since I was a kid, back in the late 60s and 70s, schools have been built to look like prisons.
@@samr.england613so true
@@samr.england613 Ah, they're just getting the kids ready for their future as craftsmen in the prisons' sweatshops. *cough* Sorry, I meant the prisons' "vocational & rehabilitation programs".
@@samr.england613they ARE prisons. They don’t teach you to be smart, just obedient and used to being a slave to the wealthy
My wife and I bought a 1920 craftsman because we feel the same about modern housing. Our house needs work and we've been doing revocations bit by bit but even though it's not perfect I'd rather have our old house with worn original features that were built to high quality standards than a pristine new house made of cheap materials.
Found my way into a Queen Ann Victorian home in So Cal built in 1888. At first, it was a bugger to repair and maintain. But now, 7 years in with most big restoration tasks behind me, I’m jazzed to be living in a piece of history.
We just moved in to an 1874 Queen Anne Victorian in August, it is a dream come true for me. Only took 50 years to get one. Lol. I feel very blessed.
Hopefully you're safe from the wildfires🙏
I grew up in New England and I moved from Connecticut to New York and one of the best things about living in both states are all of the old Victorian and Gothic style homes. And I have been lucky enough to live in a few homes that looked very much like the house from 1890 in the thumbnail to this video.
From the soild hardwood to the details in the crown molding and stair cases, the turrets with large windows on 3 sides. It's all amazing. One house I lived in even had a stained glass window in one of the upstairs hallways. Plus there was a large bedroom that had a smaller room off to the side that was inside the turret, we called that room the study, and I loved sitting at the desk in there and looking out all 3 of the large windows that was located up on the 3rd floor. Made me feel a little bit like a royal princess, looking down on the city and seeing everyone going about their day.
These new homes are just a nightmare! I could not imagine having to live in a place with an open floor plan like that and not have dedicated rooms for specific activities. Our human brains don't function well with that type of space, it's just harder to stay organized especially if you have a family and then you got the kids wanting to have a playroom and the adults want to have a home office or something and it becomes too much of a hassle. People do better with dedicated rooms for certain activities.
I know the real reason for these open floor plans and losing the hard wood and details is obviously money, since it's so much cheaper to use less quality materials but damn! These new houses are just awful!
A practical reason for small rooms also was heating. If you only have one fireplace to heat a room, a smaller room is easier to keep warm, as there's less air to warm up.
The middle class in the US at the turn of the 20th century was not as large and far reaching as it would become after WWII. The number of 2 bedroom 1 bath homes would stagger the imagination. Houses with 4-6 bedrooms weren't as common as one imagines based on what has survived after 120 years. Urban renewal wiped out 1000s of these small cheaply built low quality homes.
So one must ask, “why during an era of wood heating would anyone build something like this regardless of how much money they had?” What we’ve been told about these places is a lie. They were built by the millennial kingdom saints during the 1000 year reign of Christ. That’s why they do not make sense in our modern world. Although this may seem like a wacky idea, if we were taught this as children in school, would it seem wacky now? What’s wacky is a single generation from the 1800s being so brilliant and rich that they literally created and invented everything we use today. Does that make sense?
Smaller rooms are more practical and make better use of space.
Our house (traditional wood frame in central Europe) has the chimney in the middle, low ceiling and small windows. After we fixed the holes in the walls, it is very warm, comfortable and easy to heat with that one fireplace. Of course, there probably were 2 fires in the house in the past, because it is not a home without a stove.
Some of the smoke was redirected to smoke the pig meat.
@@cryptojoecoin5480 No. It doesn't.
Don't forget that all those Victorians had old-growth hardwood floors and trim. You literally cannot get wood like that anymore
Exactly.
Yup. They stripped the old growth forests bare. Most of the problems they blame on climate change are caused by deforestation. Especially drought and wildfires.
@@gussampson5029 i mean droughts and wildfires are caused by climate change
and climate change is partly caused by deforestation
Please do your part in 2025 and discourage people from using the word "literally".
@gussampson5029 wild fires are also part of the ecosystem. Cleans out under brush and becomes a very very good fertilizer.
There's another important aspect:
We used to live in one place and could expect that our kids take over our home and company...
All this is gone... The more we have to move around the less we can invest in a home.
Then there are other factors, such as an increase in property taxes, and maintenance costs that have driven inhabitants out of their mansions.
This!
100%
Remember that there wasn't a federal income tax until 1912 and the technology of a home in that era was rudimentary. Homes were wired for lighting only. The electrical outlet wasn't invented until1904. In 1900 1% of homes had indoor plumbing.
Too complicated. They want to dumb everyone down and limit your imagination. Storm troopers live in storm trooper domiciles.
Not only that, but homes went from a place to live, to becoming an investment for potential profit. So the housing prices have been going up faster than the rate of inflation as a result.
@@cybernoid001 - "Consumerism" has invaded practically everything!
Worse, the Home Mortgage became the Common Means of funding a Home purchase, instead of Savings, which meant a "Banker" or "Mortgage Officer" at the Bank, telling us stuff, like "Your Home is your most valuable 'Asset' you'll own!" While failing to inform you that it was the Banks Asset, because you paid them each month, but to you, it came with a "Liability" - that Very "Mortgage" that got you in it!
Compared to an Apartment Building, that if you bought it, it was treated as a Business, where its value was determined by the Revenue it Generated, Average Occupancy Rates, and Bad Debt Risks from non paying tenants, instead of "Comps" or "Comparable Property Neighborhood Recent Sales" - which today get "Inflated" by the Real Estate Agents, promising Sellers, to get them "Tens of Thousands over Asking Price" because of their own vested interest in a Higher Sales Price, to drive a Higher "Commission!"
yess.... *_YEESSSSS!!_*
Finally, a video on how homes have become factory-manufactured boxes w/ blank, open, characterless interiors.
Yes
Homes have always been that way. Have you ever heard of mill houses?
Victorian homes were the mansions of the wealthy at that time. Normal people couldn't afford more than a shack with a couple rooms.
@@EngNerdGMN Not here in New York, and based on my basic familiarity with historical American residential architecture, not quite throughout the States, either. An average, lower-middle to upper middle class homeowner used to be able to expect or command at the very least color-painted walls and a decently sized front yard with a small fireplace indoors and perhaps an attic. Nowadays, how many houses made today do you see ever have attics? Or cellars?
Remember alcoves? Or phone nooks? Archways? How about wood paneling rather than cheap composite recycled garbage (I use the term "garbage" here purely descriptively rather than the crude sense): red wood, cedar, mahogany?
What about an actual (lifted) bathtub, rather than the all-in-one units fixed into stand-up showers? There are so many things that didn't require one to be filthy rich to enjoy in a very basic, standard American home, including separated rooms with more specific uses and greater privacy than the zero-privacy, ever-fluid open concept generic and transitory spaces seen now.
Zero ornamentation on ceilings, not even minor embellishments of the cheap-looking kind. No molding, trimwork, or geometric plasterwork whatsoever.
Not even chandeliers, let alone gasoliers.
Nope.
Just a cardboard cut-out with white on the inside, a couple of interior walls, and not even facing the correct direction to maximize sunlight or light efficiency.
I think that homes could and should become like IKEA and made in a factory however there's no reason they have to be boring, lack personality and soulless. I agree with the author that we should try to combine what works from old and new.
@@EngNerdGMN I grew up here in SC in a Queen Anne-style victorian/neovic home built roughly 100 years ago and owned by my great-grandfather, who wasn't the original builder but did turn it to what it looked like when he lived there about 13 years ago. Like other QA-style vics, it was the exact opposite of the traits in my original post and is pretty much what first came to mind in terms of a house with character, fine craftsmanship, and high design --- without costing a million dollars to build (though the house sold for $2.8M, according to my grandma --- the daughter of my GGF). Originally built at 1200 sq. ft. and there were apparently no buildings in town and few other houses, and by the late '80s or early '90s, it was roughly 2900 sq. ft. with an added level, garages, and longer driveway and gates with a small orchard and what my grandparents used to call the "ol' man's dustshack", which was basically a decently sized carpentry/wood shop/painting lab slash tools room. I'd get beaten if I took a step in there without permission and did a few times when my cousins and I thought our uncles and grandpa weren't around.
I'm fortunate to still be living in a farmhouse that my grandfather built in 1901. I don't know how long it took him to build it, but it has stood the test of time for 124 years. It has gone through a few renovations, over the years, but it's still standing strong. He passed in 1944, the year before I was born, so I never got to know him, personally. But, the architecture and durability of this old house are a testament to the way homes should still be built, today.
My wife took our 120 year old “Wedding Cake” house and she restored it to a better than original state. It was an absolute mess when we bought it- ceilings lowered to eight foot, blown in insulation on top of the dropped ceilings, nothing up to anyone’s code.
It only took us 35 years, and many tens of thousands of dollars. Luckily her father was a master union carpenter, who, while not teaching her directly, allowed her to watch us work. At 70 she is a far better finish carpenter than most professionals! 12” crowns, 10” base with 6” casings. Rosewood floors over the original fir subfloors. Her 35th anniversary present was a 12” compound sliding miter saw.
Money is one thing, but these houses are most restored with love.
You married a keeper!! Take good care of her.
Your wife sounds amazing, and you must be a catch too for she's still married to you! What wonderful dedication and lifelong labor of love--to your home and each other. So rare these days. It really made my day just reading this.
Good on you sir for being outwardly proud of your wife’s skills! Thats refreshing! Team work is dream work! I’m a cabinet maker & I want to learn raw carpentry. 💜
Well done!
Can you let me know what home improvement stores accept love as payment? All the ones I visit expect money lol.
As you pointed out today's houses are mass produced. In the Victorian era, the homes were multi-generational in that you would have 3 sometimes 4 generations living in the same house.
That's only true for "middle class" homes of today, i.e. rowhouse neighborhoods. The current rich don't live in these, they have multiple home ownership of custom built homes in true swanky areas (not the pretend ones some middle class neighborhoods showcase). These custom built homes are designed to whatever configuration they want it to be.
@@oldtwinsna8347 Those homes would be a more accurate comparison for this video.
As a contractor who has worked on old mansions to McMansions, the old structures will always surprise you with a problem. Problems historical societies that run these neighborhoods don't often have solutions for because of the historical aspect trying to work old into new. I understand this completely because I respect the past & their accomplishments not wanting to alter the original owner's vision. The main reasons are what you said - mainly monetarily prohibitive. The other problem almost as important as $ to fund it are the people who are doing the hands-on work. You want craftsmen working on these, expensive large projects with a bunch of experience. Good luck getting all the needed trades to fall into that category on one project, because they are few and far between. Great channel.
True ... back in the day, labor was cheap and materials were expensive. Today, it's the opposite. You need a skilled craftsman to work on the old homes, but back in the day, they were more plentiful, took more pride in their work, and didn't cost so much. Today, it is possible to get craftsmen in the needed trades all on one project, but keep your checkbook out.
As someone who has worked in these beautiful homes, can confirm.
I used to know a guy (from France) who was a stonemason. They are so few, his skills were highly in demand. Only worked on old buildings.
Back then a well built home, modest or rich, were built like machines. The whole home was made as best as it could be to handle heat and cold. Strategically placed overkill of big windows in every room with little windows throughout other places to do cooling and cross breezes. Pocketdoors and doors in everyplace to keep and manage heat. I learned to heat and cool the home with food. My home is a middle class edwardian about 1500sqft and it was originally heated by 2 fireplaces and a gravity furnace.
I started restoring and using the home as it was meant to be heated and cooled and I save hundreds a month on bills.
I put doors back where they originally were to only direct heat where I want to and open windows depending on heat and wind.
Sometimes in the summer it can get too humid and hot with just a fan and windows open and I don't have sleeping porches so I had to figure where/how did these people hang out or sleep in heat, it must be the basement. Now I go to the basement to sleep or rest comfy in the summer, its almost like a 15 temperature difference down there.
If you restore your home to how it was originally meant to be used and worked it's cheaper than trying to shove a new home into an old home.
I'm pretty much off grid even though I live in a neighborhood.
It does require more different efforts and strengths than living modern but you get a little workout, pride and satisfaction with every domestic chore because of the work you had to put into it.
The only thing I don't like is the constant heating and carrying of water allover the home, it feels sometimes like you just went to the gym.
We have some wonderful historic early 19th century homes in my town, but it is virtually impossible to work on them because they were declared historic and thus everything is $$$ if the plaster wall cracks you can’t just get someone to fix the plaster you have to get a master craftsman that was trained in the school of 18th century design with pedigrees and a career full of experience in order to get them to show up for two hours and plaster a wall for a cost of $10,000 for a few cracks because the historical society won’t allow you to modify a damn thing without months of paperwork and visits to a lawyer to draw up contracts and stipulations and guarantees.
We had a 4000 square-foot home on the lakefront on a 2 acre plot, language on the market for over three years without anybody touching it at $250,000 for what should have been a $1.5 million home because if it’s location alone…… because there was roof damage that it led to water damage that it led to one of the upstairs bedrooms walls caving in and the estimated repair cost to put everything back exactly how it was when it was built in 1895 was upwards of $3 million and the historical society wouldn’t let a single paintbrush, be waived unless it was done in the original manner.
That home literally rotted out from under itself because no one was willing to invest the millions of dollars to do it the way the historical society demanded.
What could’ve been done for 40 grand by modern methods, was astronomically expensive because everything had to be done original
I love and prefer older homes. They are so beautiful and lavish.
I was hired to demolish a wooden barn from 1901 that was 30x50 because the roof was damaged by a blizzard. The wood was incredible, you just don't see rings this tight today, I saved as much as I could fit in my barn. I made a small fortune selling what I couldn't use to a few craftsmen in the region who will turn much of it into beautiful hand created works like 150 years ago. I use a lot of it myself. Made a ridiculously over built 12x16 shed with it too. It was sad to see it go but one old barn is now part of dozens of custom homes in our area now as well as many word projects I made and sold myself, as well as one permanent structure on my property. In a way I feel like one beautiful buildings demise gave rise to many more. :)
For nearly a decade from 2000 - 2009, I painted and finished custom houses in Calgary Alberta. People would be shocked if they saw some of the houses that are actually still getting built. These builders had carpenters and finishers that only worked for them, and they would build one Mansion a year
The Amish builders in my area also do pretty marvelous work. 🎉
just like steam engines. every engine had its own machinist who made every part by hand. little to no parts were interchangeable between machines. when they started standardising stuff and all the craft and know how was gone.
$ame here in New England.......
$ame here in New England.......
agreed, im an electrician and i have wired 2-5 million dollar homes in the midwest, very nice, some of the most beautiful houses I've seen. in my area we have plenty of houses built around the turn of the century, you can see a wide range of craftsmanship from Victorian wonders to basic af in those 1890's houses. those mansions that are still around from that era are the exception, not the norm. The master wood workers and masons are still around, but not as workers, they make way more hired as the artists they truly are.
Something we've lost by moving from these older designs to modern open floorplans is the functional efficiency of smaller, single use rooms. I mean the mental clarity and efficiency in human performance. Multi-use rooms have to be constantly reordered (cleaned up, etc.) for each new activity. Smaller, single-use rooms can be designed and organized to optimize for their use. Most bathrooms still do this. But imagine how much more productive you could be if each room supported what you are meant to be doing there in powerful and focused ways.
I love these ideas! It’s all so true!
Very true. To have a little room for office and focus would be so great.
This got me thinking about Japan where one small room is used for many purposes, with things tucked into the walls. This means the space is constantly cleaned and organized. To steel man your argument, I wonder if smaller rooms were left cluttered more often.
@@adamstager53 It's possible. At the same time, cluttered versus set up and optimized for progress could be a matter of semantics. Things are always a matter of trade-offs. But to use your example, tea houses and Shinto shrines are single-use spaces. When one is in them, there's only one reason one is there. That kind of specificity helps the mind to focus and perform the intended task with greater engagement and/or efficiency. I do appreciate your point though. You're not wrong.
It's a bit silly to say this since you're basically saying that having a larger home would be better, which is pretty obvious.
The whole point of the multiuse large room is to give a feeling of space when you have too little, while also being useful.
It is incredibly wasteful to have a bunch of dedicated rooms that you rarely use and has always been the realm of the rich. Common folk have always used multiuse rooms.
I really do appreciate simplicity and pragmatism, but those old styles are gorgeous.
My 1904 Victorian had twelve foot ceilings, pocket doors separating the main living areas, a working dumbwaiter, and a functioning summer kitchen, in the basement. Both kitchens had built-in ice boxes. We retired to Florida. I miss my old house as much as I miss old friends up north. We sold to a young couple that looked a long time for a home with original features. They stay in touch. I taught the how to retract and repair pocket doors before I left. I makes me very sad when I see an old home remodel into a modern home. You take on a lot more responsibility with an old home. An old home is like caring for an elderly relative. The heart you put into it is repaid in spades, but it's not a good fit for most people. I previously owned a 1929s craftsman home, that was a bit of a money pit, but was and still is my dream home. I learned a lot there about fixing stuff. It was worth every cent I put into.
They don't build houses like that because the craftsmanship isn't there. Contractors don't apprentice tradesman anymore. They hire bodies. With a hammer.
EXACTLY...AND, NON ENGLISH SPEAKING....ARE NOT CRAFTSMEN..!!!
Thay do build houses like that. They build houses better than that. Classical, modern, artificial, organic.
The thing is YOU CAN'T AFFORD THEM.
If you lived a hundred years ago wouldn't be able to afford the houses which are still standing today.
America was full of tin roofed hovels or brick and timber tenement firetraps. They were not worth preserving for hundreds of years.
@@lindawojtas4491 They have some pretty sweet houses old houses in Germany, Italy, Argentina... actually a lot of the world now that I think about it. Did they have to import English speakers to build them?
Nailgun
@rollinlikebuer9059
AMEN ❤❤❤❤
PLEASE KEEP THE CALIFORNIANS OUT.....!!!!!
I love older houses. Anything before 1960.
Even though I grew up in this house, I’m always amazed when I come back to my family home. ( that is a Victorian home ) from my modular home.
I did not realize what I had growing up.
I do now.
These homes are so well-built I can’t even put it into words.
The pride in each swing of the hammer and careful intent of each cut and fastener is cast aside in modern mass production and the exponential pursuit of the next dollar.
If you are in the usa , it's not a Victorian home. Victorian refers to the period and places queen Victoria ruled. Queen Victoria didn't rule the usa. We have different names for our periods like "Reconstruction" and "Gilded Age" etc
@diegoflores9237 it's the style. The Victorian STYLE homes are built all over the world. Many Craftsman and Sears & Roebuck kit houses were Victorian STYLE with intricate facia and adornments.
You're conflating periods and styles. But also, the Victorian era was during the expansion period and early industrial revolution periods of the United States and Victorian craftsmanship had a huge impact on American architecture when a lot of the structures in reference were designed and built.
As a Brit, I've always been a bit discombobulated that Americans refer to the "Victorian" period, and in a way it's oddly reassuring. "Gilded Age" I've heard of vaguely, and "Reconstruction" is completely new to me. What does it mean? Is it a reference to a move from vernacular to European styles? @@diegoflores9237
@@deek791 exactly.
And this house was built in 1897 . .
I will forever be grateful that my grandparents were able to leave a cash legacy to my family, and that my mother used it to make sure I have a house to live in. My 1908 simple 1.5 story, 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom Craftsman (with partially finished basement and detached 2-car garage) is perfect for my husband and me. There is always something to tinker on, to personalize, or to upgrade. It is solid -- real 2x4s, one piece beams that span the entire footprint -- and it has character!
In older homes, each wall division creates unique rooms that open-up before you like the various scenes in a full length theatrical production, each one with a different feel and import to the plot.
An open concept house, however, is simply a one-act play.
Open concept seems to be more adaptable to minimalist living though, which more humans should embrace.
@@pavelow235 The only "good" thing about "open concept" is that a parent can be in the kitchen fixing dinner and still keep an eye on the kids in the family room. It's to the point where, some builders are also providing an "open office" attached to the "great room," so the parents can have their computer on their desk and work from home, and still keep an eye on the kids in the family room.
They had small rooms because they had no central heating.
Beautifully said.
Well expressed!
thank you very much for this video! i've been living in older victorian homes for the past twenty years and love it. i also live in a neighborhood where there is a mix of both victorian/edwardian style homes and modern ones, and the difference is striking.
The older Victorian era homes were so beautiful… I would love to own one ❤️
you wouldn't love the floorplan, maintenance, or efficiency though.
3:33 Truth. Anyone who has the money for a custom home and wants to mimic the proportions of an older home will be very hard pressed to find an architect who understands what every architect knew 100 years ago.
As an architect by diploma, I wanna tell that's an absolute lie. We DO learn about old styles, their rules, proportions, principals, etc. It's not something we use too often, but it's something we must know.
At the end of the day, architect is a job. We're not doing victorian mansions because we cant, but rather because we're not paid for it.
I feel like one thing most architects have in common is a reverence for historical architecture.
@@vldvvalentin you guys learn it, then go out into the real world and make cookie cutter buildings and homes
@@vldvvalentin you guys learn it, then go out into the real world and make cookie cutter buildings and homes
@@vldvvalentin you might learn it, then go out into the real world and make cookie cutter buildings and homes
I am an old soul. I DO NOT like open concept! This is one of the reasons I love the older homes.
I agree 100%
Who wants to hear someone doing the dishes as they watch a film?
Who wants to cook with all the guests watching?
Who wants to cut the number of outlets and wall space (for art, pictures, cabinets, and shelves) in half?
Who wants to walk 14 feet to get to every light switch?
Who wants parties with even just 15 people to be so loud from conversation alone that everybody there wants to find a quiet place to talk and there isn't one?
Who wants to have 20 guests over for a holiday and have them all in the same common room the whole day?
Who wants to hear the kids playing in the living room while they try to converse in the dining room?
Who wants to struggle to find quiet appliances, since you will now hear the HVAC, washing machine, dishwasher, garbage disposal, refrigerator, microwave, air purifiers, blender, mixer, and everything else all in the same room as the TV, piano, game console, and stereo?
I understand that our ancestors had long-houses so the entire extended family and animals could all be heated and cook together in one room by the single grand fire. However, we in the West resolved this hundreds of years ago with chimneys. Modern heating tech makes it even easier to divide the house. Yet, we are being told it is better to live like middle-ages peasants.
@@furtim1 _"we are being told it is better to live like middle-ages peasants."_
I don't know if this a "we are being told" issue. From what I'm hearing, this is what sells.
Watch some of those "FixUpMyHouse" shows on TV. If you had a drinking game where you took a swig every time one of the Property Brothers mentioned "Open Concept", you'd be plastered before the end of the show. Yet every time they mention it, the clients' eyes open wide.
@furtim1 My mom was always entertaining. The guests always commented on how cozy and intimate her gatherings were- no matter how large. Women and men sometimes want to break apart and talk about different things. We had an old house that wasn't open concept and I think that people appreciated how this let people go off into different groups while our big living room let us all mingle if that was necessary.
@@uncaboat2399 I hear you. Take my comment as being akin to judging people for wearing bell bottoms or butterfly collars after Madison Avenue and the designers told them to "like it, you hippies! Stick it to the man by buying our moronic attire". Maybe it is like saying "we are being told" to enjoy "modern art" that is little more than splatters or spills, while the people who sell it to the masses use their sales money to buy classic works of art. It is hard to know who is at the heart of this, consumers or designers/contractors, but I think if you asked people if they want their kitchen garbage to be within 10 feet of the dining table, they would say "No!". We are being bent into liking it because it is cheaper to build (way less ductwork, electrical, walls, etc) and being told it is high-end cool and, therefore, actually worth more.
It’s tough to beat the old growth lumber that went into the earlier homes. Now when you go to the box stores for lumber you have to check each board for warpage. The materials that went into older homes were just better.
"You want your wood stable and straight, right? Well, we have to kiln dry it and then plane it flat and straight, so your lumber is all undersized." Meanwhile: * garbage tier warped and awful lumber regardless * Modern lumber sucks.
So true. I watched my parents home being built when they moved to be near the grandkids in 2020, and I couldn't believe the wood that they were using in the build. Some of it even had the bark still on one side of the timber, or a big knot hole in the middle, or crappy pine with pitch dripping from a crack in the wood. Contrasted to their old home, which was built in the 1950s out of straight grained clear Douglas fir. No warping and hard as a rock. All dimensionally true, no bark or partial tree trunk rounding of the edges. Quality of materials have really done down.
Pretty much all the old growth lumber is gone now, and ironically most of it ended up in landfills. Only 1% of the old growth still remains in the province where I live, and it needs to be preserved, not turned into spec houses.
There's a reason why there's no old-growth lumber in big box stores - the older generation cut ut all down except for a few protected areas.
Don't blame Home Depot; blame the builders of those fine old houses.
Do you know you can warp them back into shape? You just need some boiling water, clamps and a few days to let them dry.
the homes you're showing indeed existed. we have a few like that in my town from that time period. they were lived in by people who owned 15 factories. the average worker back then would have never set foot in a house like that, much less own one.
Don’t compare older mansions for the rich, to current housing for the middle class.
Years ago I owned a very small one level 1 bdrm Victorian built in the 20's. It wasn't built for the rich, it's ornate features were toned down, it was small, but it was beautiful.
Yes! You should compare Victorian / guilded era homes to modern day mansions. Which ironically share similar features of both.
I thought the same.
The best decision I ever made was to buy a small 1908 bungalow in 1993. It cost the same as a nice car and it was paid off in ten years. I redid the kitchen and bathroom and added a master bedroom addition, using the same moldings and finishings as the original. You cannot tell it was an addition. I acted as my own General Contractor and that's how you get your vision implemented.
I miss my first small house (mentioned above). Plenty of room for me and the cat and the mortgage was cheap. But my then fiancee wasn't impressed. She built a huge house instead. Borrowed the down payment, too, back before the crash when they were handing out mortgages like Halloween candy. Even with both of us making good money, it went back to the bank. We're buying the house we rented for the ten years since. I would have had my original house paid off long ago and not be in the market when prices are sky high. You were very wise.
Well done! I agree that you need to do it yourself or run the project yourself to get what YOU want. I have done extensive wainscoting in a craftsman style in my house, love the result!
Home improvement can be addicting! It may be a typo but it fits!
I'm glad no one could tell you had an addiction. That's personal and not necessary for everyone to know. Admitting it, though, is the first step to recovery.
Oh... addition! My mistake.
@OneLoveRSR damn autocorrect
If you have the money, you can build pretty much anything you want. I have friends who built an *authentic* other than modern systems Victorian on the coast of Maine. It cost something like $10M to build a
The problem is the rise of HOAs and strict building codes. Mansions of old didn't get that way overnight. Modern practices make it so that even if you wanted to make your cookie cutter house interesting, some asswipe 51 year old woman would complain about how having a unique porch or painting your house blue would destroy the character of the neighborhood. Her opinion matters only because the HOA only cares about maintaining a certain tax value assessment
So don't buy in an HOA. Problem solved. If you have the money to build a Victorian today, you have the money to build it anywhere you please anyway.
@@Kevin_Rhodesright. You can still build a home like this….. thing is, people won’t want to pay for it.
HOA's are there for a reason, and this is very off thread. You want a bunch of derelict cars on your n. lawn and old appliances?? No. HOA's are actualy RARE in the bigger picture of housing.
Whats funny about HOA's is that some wont allow pick up trucks or certain vehicles in driveway but then force you to drag garbage cans to front and leave them there all day until you come home if you work 9-5. Two $50 can sit in front of your house but not a $50k or higher truck thats never hauled anything but a fat ass.
@@Kevin_Rhodes The big problem is that everywhere you go to buy a new home, you get a HOA crammed down your throat.......it's all a scam, disguised to "protect home values". What happens when the market tanks? How does an HOA protect from that???
Those old Victorian homes were work of art 👍
Survivorship bias.
"Little House on the Praire" will give you greater insight into what most people could really afford in the late 1800s - emphasis on little.
Fast and cheap. That’s our world now. Sad.
Fast and cheaply made. But unaffordable still 😢
@@TomChilli I was considering buying a 6k sf Victorian mansion (in amazingly good condition) or a 3k sf modern day block of ticky tack crap (spaces about 4 feet away from the next piece of crap). I ran out of time with the other decision maker, but the price for the mansion was about $700k, $500k for the ticky crap. What kind of comparison is that? For me, it was obvious, but the cost of maintaining that mansion would have killed me. Probably cost 100k just to get someone to properly repaint it.
You are confusing homes with location..... There's an abundance of classic old homes that need to be repaired in places like Detroit and Buffalo New York.... That you can afford, yet there's other problems at play when you live in those areas
@@furtim1 Is painting really that difficult? I bet the only issue would be ladders to reach certain areas.
@@pineappleparty1624 I haven't painted an exterior myself, aside from touchup work. I have bid those jobs out before ($54k on an original craftsman and $15k for a 1980s "craftsman", though the original was probably 2-3x the size). The trouble comes with a home like this in that it has so very many irregular surfaces (carved moldings, crevices, and details) that are tricky to paint properly. Also, the issue with these details on exteriors is they don't drain water well and end up rotting, rot which must be repaired before painting. Another issue is that these fine details can't just be painted over and over without losing their crispness. The paint has to be scraped and sanded out or you end up with a smudgy mess, rather than a crisp Corinthian crown. I suspect that sanding all these odd shapes by hand also increases the price. Lastly, the exterior surface area of a Queen Anne house of two stories (1.5k sf each) will be way more than a boring box house of today of the same interior square footage. So, it requires more gallons of paint. You are also right about the height. The 3rd floor would have needed really high scaffolding.
I get that tastes and aesthetics change over time and that fancier/more complex building comes at a higher cost, but for the love of God why did society decide Gray was a good design choice? Gray floors, walls, appliances, grayscales, tans, and whites and off-whites everywhere, not just in homes but in cars and other buildings. When, how, and why did people come to fear color?
Blame it to the minimalism man
The most prevalent theory is that it's a reaction to advertising. If most of the bright colors we see comes from ads, using those same colors in a resting space like a home can be overstimulating, hence an inclination towards neutrals. (I personally am not a fan of "neutral everything" but I do think this theory holds water)
Because it's neutral. Houses are being sold to new buyers every 5-10 years because people move around so much so it's beneficial to have an interior that is a "blank slate" so that the new buyer can jazz it up how they want to according to their own personality. Minimalism does play a role but it's mostly just a conservative way to decorate a house so it has the most mass appeal and doesn't turn off some picky Karen who doesn't like whatever color the walls are painted.
I think they photograph better for house-flippers. We may never return to the cozy/busy wallpapered rooms of the past, but I do think the time is ripe for a revival of warm earth tones. Why should a suburban home try to mimic the esthetic of an urban loft? Never made much sense.
Short answer: neutral colors re-sell better.
Same with cars. Remember 1980s cars with blue, yellow, or green interiors? Good news: looks snazzy. Bad news: here's hoping the second owner will like it too, especially if you went with something wild like purple paint and red interior.
These beautiful old stately victorian houses were built for the very rich. Middle and working class homes were nothing like that.
Which is why mid-century modern homes were such a good idea. They couldn't possibly build small, ornate mansions so architects perfected the concepts of simple, clean and elegant.
@@ManInTheBigHat….and cheap and mass-produced. These are not bad things at all! Cheap, mass-produced keeps people sheltered.
I don't agree with that. Not all victorian homes were mansions. There were smaller homes decorated in the victorian style . Unfortunately, they were ripped down and replaced with ugly cement structures during the mid 1900s.
@ notice he said “beautiful” and “stately.”
You do realize middle class homes back then were built better than today? You can easily find affordable holder homes that were not just “built by rich people of the past”
What kills me is that people are now forced to take 400k loans to live in an white box, and now we’re finding out a lot of these houses are built so cheaply they begin to fall apart in just under a couple decades.
My favorite is mediterranean/ spanish style architecture with tan to beige stucco siding with burnt orange to red tile roof, terra cotta tile floors, arched wooden doors & doorways, arched windows topped off with black wrought iron accents/ works for windows with spanish style amber lights & golden mirror glass windows.
It is my goal in life to buy or build a house that has those Old World details.
The older houses, especially the mansions, were lovely and built with superb craftsmanship. As an owner of a beautiful little house built in 1900, I have to keep it in shape and tight against rodents and spiders. Luckily my house is a small one, so housekeeping and maintenance is easy. I can see why people who lived in those large Victorian houses had to hire maids and handymen to help keep the home clean and in good repair.
What came to mind watching this video were the Sears Craftsman kit homes that were affordable and full of charming quality details. I think you did a video about them.
Which people put together THEMSELVES. Imagine a Gen Z doing so.
@@donnarichardson7214 Didn't their fathers hand down the knowledge they learned, or did the previous generation just leave them hanging? Their parents should have protected trade classes in school too, but they just watched them disappear and didn't do squat about it. It seems gen z had a lack of mentoring from a generation of self-absorbed narcissists that do nothing but whine constantly.
@@donnarichardson7214how can they? Nobody is teaching or apprenticing skills because manufacturing has changed and outsourced largely due to Boomer votes
@@namedrop721 LOL one of the more amusing attempts to blame boomers for things they had no say in. Boomer jobs were the major victims of all the outsourcing since Reagan. Put the blame where it belongs--corporations and their conservative political enablers who have made the vast majority of people in all generations poorer.
I think you nailed. there are so many details in older homes like airflow, plaster and lathe etc sun positioning on land that helped older homes stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter. we lost that with cookie cutter homes that are build with shoddy new growth timber wrapped in expensive plastic that mold
Open floor plans are horrible to heat, cool, and on top of that depending on the size of the home it is harder to have a more homey or intimate feel to them as well.
As a mom of six kids, I can assure you that open floorplans are extremely impracical. When friends show up, I have to clean like crazy because there is no way to hide meal mess and kid clutter.
I would never ever have an open concept home
Open floorplans are EXTREMELY practical for SMALL homes. But you are probably not raising six kids in my 770sq/ft open plan home. The single (like me) couple or couple with a single kid who would be comfortable in my house are not going to make much of a mess.
I would not want a home with an open plan great room the size of a ballroom (friends of mine have one that is bigger than my entire house), but I am going to bet that my kitchen/dining/living room is the size of your master bedroom.
@@Kevin_Rhodes Wrong!
Also a mom of 6. We just finished building our dream home, I LOVE all of our walls😂 I love being able to put things away and CLOSED THE DOOR. My joke to the builder was that I didn’t want pancakes with syrup all over, I wanted a waffle 🧇 compartmentalization is an amazing thing.
Different life styles back then. They'd close off rooms to save on fuel. They actually used their fireplaces and their kitchens were non-functional by modern standards. A lot of their "appliances" weren't even built ins. Things like washing machine were on wheels etc. so they cold be stored later.
In order to get the old style homes that I love, I bought a grand 1898 Victorian farm house and fixed it up. But I had to sell it when I got laid off and had to move. One modern house later, I bought a 1980s home styled after the Wren house in Williamsburg. It is one of the very few homes built relatively recently in the Richmond, VA area that has this kind of classic architecture. It was worth the wait and the 18 month search.
As an architect in the profession for 50 years, I bemoam the total loss of asthetic that has befallen our society! The outlook of people who built the house I live in was to build for posterity and to put the care, materials and craftsmenship into their homes, as well as parks and public thoroughfares. The city beautiful movement launched by the incredible impact of the 1893 Chicago's Columbian Exposition touched every city, town and borough on the US! From 1880s to WW 1, hundreds of thousands of houses, public and private buildings, parks and avenues were remade! True most could not afford Victorian houses but all could enjoy the scale, beauty and wonder these built enviroments afforded every citizen! Some how after the great depression and WW2 this sense of beauty and planning was lost to mass produced house and the absolute cheapening of materals and planning. The 1950s through 1970's saw the andolute desecration of of cities where buildings that could stand centuries were destroyed for cheap stick and build architure! Modern architecture born in France and Germany behan with the premise of craftsmen ising modern materials in much the same way as builders and architects did for generation's past. This was all lost somehow in our cheap throw away culture! In Louisville, where broadway once resembled the most beautiful blvds in Europe now looks like it was bombed out and replaced by horrible, contcrete and commercial strip building and parking lots!! Maybe someday people will look at the beautiful relics of their Victorian Heritage and say enough is enough and recapture the creativity of the human spirit and not the mass produced machine!!!
I too believe this will happen! ---a desire to return to the past. People will get tired of the boring world pf cheap/lackluster homes we live in and say "Let's build something beautiful for beauty's sake...and let's start with our homes which are our sanctuaries!'
There is a correlation between peoples beliefs and thinking process that manifests itself in music and architecture. Empty souls create ugly architecture and meaningless music.
In addition to it being a more racist era, more division amongst differing people, probably the divide between the rich and the poor was as great or greater than today.....yes I like the old homes of the 1890s but I don't want to go back to that era😊
Appreciating the beauty of a rich man's home from the outside doesn't mean much when you live in squalor. The wealthy could still build these today but for the most part they prefer other styles. I prefer most people being sheltered from the wind and rain in boring box homes to a few people having beautiful magnificent homes while their cheap labor that lived around them in shit.
Couldn't agree more. Fortunately, I live in a western NY city with a LOT of older housing stock that is beautiful and not excessively fancy so it can be kept up and repaired.
Love this I wish we could bring back more charm and beauty. I live in a cookie cutter home and while I am grateful to have a home, I wish I could add much more artistic touches to it!!
My parents first house was a duplex in a multistory 1920 style brick house. The whole house by itself, would have been a good size, but the half house we had was pretty small. Each of the rooms were very small. Only one bathroom. Separate garage, in back at the end of the yard. We had to walk through the snow to get there. Later on they bought a modest Mcmansion. We had a lot more space, more bathrooms, more closet space. Attached garage. It was a better setup. Ideally they can make something with the space of a mcmansion, with more the character of an older home. They of course do that now for richer people. Their Mcmansions are more individually designed and have more character.
Im not fond of open floor plans, when you have dinners every one can see your dirty pots and pans . I live in a larger 50s ranch style house and i really enjoy it
Amen to that!
I agree with you, but I completely understand the appeal of an open floor plan.
When I babysit my nephews, I can see almost every inch of the finished basement and 1st floor from anywhere on those respective floors, and I wouldn't want it any other way if I had young kids of my own.
@@zelendel when my kids were little it was nice to be in the kitchen loading the dishwasher, ( seemed like a never ending job in those days) and could just turn around and check on my daughter, just didn't like always looking into the kitchen from the Great room, we had bought a odd 1974 house built with a great room. I inherited my parents larger 50s ranch style house and the kids are grown
We too lived in a 1955 home for 25 years. Small yes, but it had character.
@@zelendel Interesting that cheap, brutalist, communism inspired architecture also facilitates helicopter parenting and watching the TV.
I live in in historic home built before the Civil War. There is so much character in its unique design and technically wasted spaces that people marvel at the design work. They're impressed by the multiple fireplaces, the heart pine wooden floors, the high ceilings, stained glass windows and walnut staircase. The rooms have individual functions,, The parlor, the dining room, the den / library,the kitchen and porches all on the first floor. All separated by doors these were necessary at a time when heating individual rooms was typical. I personally feel that modern house plans with open concept living is probably just easier for the Builder or contractor to build and cheaper for the individual buying the house. But once we are convinced that this is the popular style we want to live in the price goes up. It is similar to the idea that we are now convinxced that everyone needs an SUV or a pickup truck not a car. It all comes down to individual taste, needs and economic convenience. We could all due with a little bit of imagination.
Most people didn't live in those big "Victorian" homes in the "Victorian" era. They lived in much humbler abodes.
Now, as then, you get what you pay for.
Very true. And since the Victorian Era was only from 1837 to 1901, many homes after those years took on less grand proportions...as did clothing, styles of living,etc. An example of a lot of character but less grand home was shown in the video of an early 1900 teens year of a simple family home.
Yes. Though I appreciate the effort in this production, I found the opening a bit misleading when its early examples of domestic Victorian architecture were aqll mansions and then cut to a current suburban development, an unfair comparison. There could have been some more everyday Victorian homes in between.
@@John_Fugazzi Yea, they aren't comparing the average house to the average house. Those definitely werent the average owner occupied victorian dwellings. Even then people don't realize homeownership rates were actually
Yes, true. But back in the days (until about 1930s/1940s) even the average apartment building was well designed and didn't lack some ornamentation. With the 1950s the dismal grey boxes of Modern Movement took over, because after WWII they had to build quick and cheap. And now we are stuck with them.
Until the 30 year mortgage most homes had to be smaller
One big reason for the disappearance of those houses is mainenance. All those Victorian Era houses had house keepers, gardeners, chefs, nurses and other staff. It also means that those houses were houses for the 1% - bankers, owners of large manufacturing plants, managers, physicians, government officials. And the houses were not only meant to represent to the passers-by, they had to host large parties, glittering ball nights and receptions. Today, you rather move that to a restaurant or a hotel - they have the staffing and the infrastructure in place.
And not much of it was really craftsmanship. Railings were cast iron, wood panels were machine carved, and natural stone was a thin layer covering concrete and brick work. If you look at department store catalogues from the late 19th century, you will find all those design elements pre-fabricated and ready to assemble on your house, including the marble pillar with the Corinthian capital.
Many people today don't understand the motivations of Modernism anymore, because they don't know the Gilded Era from experiences, only from the preserved artifacts of the time. One of the foundational principles of Bauhaus for instance was: Build your own design! You can't sketch an idea and then outsource fabrication to some specialist shop. You have to get your hands dirty. Another one was: Show your work! You can't hide your brick wall behind a wooden panel for no other reason than to hide it. The wooden panel has to serve some additional function to be justified. And from there follows the most famous principle: Form follows function. You can't crown a pillar with a Corinthian capital without explaining what purpose it serves there. The most important principle is often ignored completely: Make your design affordable! 99% of people by definition aren't part of the 1%. Your design should cater to the 99%.
I LOVE the older homes, especially the first few that look to be suburban. Unfortunately I’ve never lived anywhere I could have had something so lovely. But, I do love your videos showing all the wonderful craftsmanship of a bygone age. Thank you.
I grew up working on these types of houses in the San Francisco Bay Area as my father was an old school contractor. Similar to vintage automobile restoration. If it's all there, great! It's when you have to locate parts from that era the money aspect really kicks in. Also, you must realize the design did not take into account modern convenience items that require way more power than was needed back then. Restoration is extremely rewarding! Just please do your homework. When you calculate the cost, double it and add 23%. This method will get you close to the actual numbers. Trust me!
The house at 0:11 is absolutely gorgeous!
I am fairly sure I've driven past it SEVERAL times in LA. If not, one that looked CLOSE to it!! O:
Agreeed!
Back when I was a student in primary school we had the chance go for an excursion to the old Victorian era mansions here in Melbourne Australia, Rippon lea estate and Werribee mansion were both beautiful and magnificent in the architectural details.
The invention of the television and the automobile was a huge influence on change
The old homes in this video were the MANSIONS of their day and not ordinary houses, so the budget was not ordinary. To compare these types of homes to your typical 199sq ft track home doesn't make any sense.
1999 square feet probably, and tract not track
@@ROForeverMan not everything. Far from it.
@@ROForeverMan and your argument is?
@@ROForeverMan by your logic barracks, factories, plants and pretty much everything else related to the common people, was made with artistic purpose in mind. Which is not. Most of these building are not present today exactly because they're not considered art, or, well, even just worth saving.
@@ROForeverMan so, you're a troll then. Fine by me.
I own an 1895 Queen Anne Victorian house, even with the higher heating and cooling and constant maintenance I think it’s 2x as solid of a structure as the 2004 house I owned previously.
Constant maintenance sounds suspiciously not solid. 20 years ago is a LONG time ago. There is a reason you don't see many 100 year old homes. They simply rotted away due to poor upkeep. Water destroys all.
@that’s why you need to perform maintenance on them, keeping good coats on paint on stuff is crucial. These old houses have wooden everything that needs to be maintained and repainted quite often. Brick needs to be tuckpointed trusses and joists periodically reinforced. The 2004 home I bought in 2017 was already having major foundation issues thank god I got out of that house before it got worse.
Much of the ornamentation in the Victorian Era was actually mass produced. In fact, the Arts and Crafts movement of the early 1900s was formed as an artisanal backlash to the widespread availability and adoption of mechanically-produced ornaments.
This is correct. But try finding that kind of ornamentation now - you'd think it was hand made at the prices it commands.
My friends and I have built our own houses from scratch using high quality local materials , original designs and some artistic touches. Each house is totally different.
On this I dare say you speak for most of us. I have personally never lived in a new-build in my life, and I never intend to.
I love the craftsman style homes and mid century modern.
I firmly believe in a past life I must have lived in one of those beautiful artistic homes. Those are really the only ones I truly love
The funny part is you could buy a kit from sears catalog to build these homes
😊because no one wants to have lived amongst the autonomous collective mud people in Monty Python’s Holy Grail
Yes and Montgomery Wards also sold kit homes. I grew up in a MW kit home and as an adult found the floor plan of our home! It was magical to find! And not all those kit homes were grand. Some, like the one I grew up in, were small, had no bathroom, little to no storage space, poor insulation, drafty windows. But there was still more style than some homes of today :)
There is a fairly large mansion in the neighboring town, which belongs to the last mayor. Supposedly, it came from Sears!
I live in one of the more modest Sears Homes... 1350sqft foursquare built in 1917... the house is a box, and has unusual asthetics... very 'modern' woodwork simple craftsman style, but has spindles on staircase but very square newel post... the house is a simple box, but has stylish gothic arches between rooms and 2 panel interior doors.... upstairs the trim wasnt stained but painted and seems more ornate and farmhouse looking, something you would see 10-20 years prior... its because it wasn't in fashion anymore and they used cheaper older style trim in private rooms... I also don't have any built-ins or a fireplace or special nooks... everything was built very simple, but still looks rich... My front porch and siding had the only design ques, and they have long been hidden under vinyl and a rebuilt front porch (a tornando hit my neighborhood in the 60s) and lost its original exterior charm when rebuilt, although is still a quaint house.
Even being more of a stripper model house, the wood floors throughout and beautiful trim make the house so much nicer feeling than newer homes... I would be retrofitting old trim into my house if it was a new modern home
@@uscitizen898 You would see the same problems on the mansions of that era. The kit homes I have seen were at least constructed with better quality framing than anything seen today!
I was born 100 years to late . I have always loved these homes . Also the fancy clothes the women wore beautiful .
This would be my dream house, one of these exquisite homes. If I had the resources, I would preserve and enjoy.
It took highly skilled workers, quality lumber, stone and other materials, designers with a beautiful vision for the WHOLE property and a lot of money.
Today even if you spend over a million you're lucky if the nails even hit the studs, which are probably warped or full of other defects and be grateful if they actually covered ALL the exterior of the home and didn't leave a child sized hole for animals to crawl into your house.
If you have enough money you can build anything you want
You are mostly comparing apples to oranges. Most of the Victorian homes featured were for the affluent whereas the mass produced homes are for the general public. My grandparents home built in the late 1800's, for instance, had a lot of quality woodwork but the rooms, the architecture, and the functionality were designed for a working class family not too much different from todays standards.
I’ve lived in what were workinmens’ homes in PA and pineapple plantation workers’ homes in Hawaii. Both better built than US crapola in the Seventies and beyond. And million dollar McMansion for the wealthy now are garbage.
Very true. There are newly built homes for the rich being put up today that would rival and blow away anything from back in the day. But the entry point of ownership isn't going to be anywhere what a typical "middle class" person would ever be able to afford over their whole lifetime.
@ the McMansions are just as ticky tacky as the rest.
@@ChrisLeonard-np7lh but these old homes that were shown fit almost all the things that are attributed to Mcmansions?
from wikipedia:
(One real-estate writer explains a successful formula typically found in McMansions: "symmetrical structures on clear-cut lots with Palladian windows centered over the main entry, and brick or stone enhancing the driveway entrance, plus multiple chimneys, dormers, pilasters, and columns-and inside, the master suite with dressing rooms and bath-spa, great rooms, breakfast and dining rooms, showplace kitchen, and extra high and wide garages for multiple cars and SUVs."[12]
These houses also typically have 3,000 square feet (280 m2) or more of floor area,[13] ceilings 9 to 10 feet (2.5 to 3m) high or higher, a two-story portico, a two-story front door hall (often containing a large chandelier), a garage with room for three or more cars, many bedrooms (with some having five or more), many bathrooms, extensive crown molding and related features, and lavish-if superficial-interior features.)
literally, other than the parts of the house that cater to cars, which werent widely adopted in the 1800s, and certainly would have introduced those architectural additions into homebuilding, almost all of it fits the things this guy is praising.
Furthermore, in the U.S. a large proportion of the normal working-class Victorian homes have not survived, leaving mostly the cream of the crop. There's a massive selection bias in comparing the best of 140 years ago with the average of today.
Architecture is an art form, and art is a reflection of the given culture.
If the culture is ailing, this will manifest in the art.
Oh, the irony of the few seconds at 1:44 to 1:57. The narration argues about the shift from artisan craftsmanship to mass production while showing the exterior and interior of a Sears Craftsman home. The plans and materials were literally sold via the mail order Sears catalog.
Beautiful. I love the old style partition over open concept any day
Because modern materials are only built to a minimum standard. Older construction was built more forgiving and with more excess capacity. Craftsmanship is no longer valued unless super rich. Now the homes are spackled together to hide all the flaws the trades cover for each other.
And a 1" thick board actually was 1" thick 🙂
@@uscitizen898 I think the actual 2 x 4 of old growth wood was probably about 3x stronger and more stable than modern "2x4" (really more like 1.5 x 3) studs that are almost entirely sapwood and springwood.
@@furtim1 of course they were stronger, you can see it in the grain of old wood. The difference is that the wood was used from old growth forests and would be unsustainable to carry on doing so if we continued.
Yes the new 2x4, are very comparable but the housing market would be far worse than it currently is without our current practice.
Great video. After Covid, open plan houses have been losing their appeal. People couldn’t get away from each other except to their bedrooms. And with some who were working from home, meetings/zoom calls and the general need for a quiet place to work was hard to accommodate.
Amen to that. My wife and I built an “open concept” house in 2019 and moved in the week they shut the country down in 2020. They were all the rage at the time and we thought it seemed great. After spending almost 5 years in it I hate it. We have 2 kids and built a 3 bedroom house. It’s 2000 square feet. We built what we could afford. Actually more than we could afford but that’s another story for another time…. Anyway I hate this house. There’s ZERO and I mean ZERO privacy. You are together as a family 100% of the time. There’s not even a corner to hide around. It sucks.
I was watching some colourized ww2 footage a while back and one of the big standouts i noticed from it was how much better looking all the houses used to be back then. Makes sense that as they need to build them faster for a growing population that one of the sacrifices would end up being the style and luxery look of the houses
When I was in high school, a project was to have the students design their dream home and property. One I thought would be cool was a Victorian House with a turret next to a busy waterfront. I'd make it a personal quest to get a surplus submarine periscope and install it in the turret to watch the ships go by.
Also, these homes were expensive as hell in the gilded age and would be just as expensive today. So it already narrows it down.
So true, it is simply rich's homes are better than commoner's. Even today, owning a Victorian style home will cost an arm and leg to keep up with the maintenance.
00:26 These houses are so terribly depressing.
Little boxes Little boxes 😂😂
..THANK YOU for your informative post. In my experience restoring a 1905 upper middle-class 3600 sq. ft. home in Milwaukee WI that cost $11K to construct (while most homes construction cost back then was 1-4K), the current cost of quality materials and lack of experienced contractors prohibit/ed a comfortable project plan. That said, residing on a registered historic street, McKinley Blvd, the city and state provided tax incentives to assist homeowners in their quest to preserve these unique historical gems that will... cannot be replaced as constructed. To understand, and feel the essence of what these homes represented then, and represent today, is a unique personal awareness worth sharing.
Have you considered contracting with Amish carpenters and cabinet makers? Some of them do travel to do work. They hire drivers. I'm in Wisconsin, so I'm speaking as local experience with them.
Naturally, I don't know the extent of your restoration, so I can only offer that as advice. We had solid wood cabinetry made by Amish--oak for the kitchen and alder for the bathroom--and it cost less than what comparable quality cabinets we looked at. There's websites that offer listings of Amish craftsmen, I think Amish in America is one. That said, there's communities all over western WI, along 14, 18, and north of Viroqua and Green Lake county areas, to name a few districts, and some actually have cell phones, ours did, and the contract price is what you pay. No jerk around. And they'll know someone else who specializes in some other type of construction. Our cabinet guy knew a door maker, etc.
If you act as your own GC, you can hire them and not worry about a middleman.
@@SpotofTeaPlease ..Thank you for your response. A quick backstory, the original owner resided in the home until death in 1940, having the funeral wake in the dining room. Purchased in 1941 by a local/Milwaukee celebrity astrologer (who had entertainer Liberace as a client here in the house) until her death in 1984/6, then the house was inherited by her cook/companion. The companion could not maintain the home and twice attempted to sell the home via two failed land contracts both within a year or three of each other. Within those 10 years, more abuse/neglect was experienced to the home by these temporary owners then in the previous 85. In 1997 I was contacted by a friend who knew the cook, and her dilemma. After a meeting (a long story in itself) I toured the single-family home. After witnessing the imported carved lion head framed wood fireplace mantel, 17 leaded glass paneled windows (a staircase landing window the size of a side by side refrigerator) one positioned in a interior wall between the dining room and foyer, and decorative floor to ceiling wood columns w/shoulder high wood paneled walled foyer to the second floor, I sought to save, immediately protect this mini mansion as best i could. The slate roof was missing huge sections (not just a single panel here and there though there was that also), and before i was deeded the home, i paid for slate/roof repair to prevent any further wood decay while my ownership was being processed. Stressful, yes, regrets...none. My grain of sand sized personal effort at preserving our, society's, this structures past, by my mission, is a satisfaction i take with me though my life in hopes the next resident will be able to enjoy what i knew was a diamond in the rough.
2025 brings a new year... focus, and moving onto structural repairs, more slate roof attention, exterior bay trim and window wood ledges. I will check out your advice suggestions which again are greatly appreciated. Historic/artistic preservation can easily be overlooked if financial opportunistic situations (stripping out of decorative physical elements/ultra modernizing) are allowed (not including kitchens). Thank you again.
@@501rivetBless you for seeing this beauty and preserving it. Yeah, a slate roof is hard to DIY. I do my own roof work, after getting outrageous quotes from professional roofers who wouldn't even repair the roof decking on my 1952 architect designed home, but my roof was simple wood and shingle. I wouldn't attempt to do slate.
@@erynlasgalen1949 ...i experienced the same repair pricing situations from slate roof contractors. All I contacted presented their business pricing as an "upscale customer" who has this roof option, must be able to afford the hype/pricy charges associated. I was quoted 100K if i wanted the entire roof recovered back in 1998. I chose to have each of four main copper clad valleys repaired ( with slate salvaged or replaced 3 feet on either side of the valley) one repaired each year after, at a cost of approx 6-8K each. I slept better after each year/repair. Fortunately, as mentioned previously, I applied for state historic preservation tax credits (approx 26% of project totals) which helped while/when I was working and filing taxable income. I was also able to find a retired slate contractor who worked on church steeples who charged me a reduced, rate that he felt was fair for his attention to detail/experience. Unfortunately, he passed away 4 years ago. Even today, 2025, flat areas of the roof still need attention. While many in my historic rehab area are not passionate about their home's history (to restore properly), they make thrifty based repairs skirting past notifying Historic Preservation (so as not requiring inspection after "repair"work). My eventual "plan" is to donate the home to the city/Historical Society w/hopes it can be used for that purpose, or be sold to new owners impressed w/the details w/the revenue going back to the Wisconsin/Milwaukee Historical Society for maintenance, or to use. My family has no interest except for any $ provided, so, a no go. BTW, slate repair is not a art, but rather a well documented process. Slate can be repurposed, and once established the repairs are standard procedure. Though no nail guns allowed, each nail on a slate roof gets a humans full attention.
@@501rivet OMG! While reading your eloquent description, I can easily imagine hearing your jaw hitting the floor! Congratulations!
All these beautiful homes were built long before any building codes.....and they have stood the test of time. They laugh at storms while today's homes fall apart in a stiff breeze.
Survivorship bias.
This is incredibly important thinking. I am currently updating a nice house that is very plain vanilla, and I will definitely add some more personal details. Thank you so your insights.
I work in commercial architecture, and went to a very Bauhaus influenced school. I've been working for almost 10 years now, and I'm starting to form and opinion other people may share, but it's really not openly talked about. There is just too much money and power that the industrialization has made. I definetly agree with the ideal of combining newer tech, materials, and techniques with the concept of personal touch. It seems like a very achievable idea - but I'm afraid it may be only an idea. For me, it feels like our entire current system would have to be completely disrupted. But that turmoil could cause so much suffering throughout that I cannot wish it upon us. Sigh. If people weren't as greedy and driven by money, perhaps we could all enjoy some of the finer details like the crafted arts.
Your ideal can happen so don't give up on your dreams. People will eventually get tired of all this "modern day/follow the trends/lackluster designed" homes and crave something that says 'beauty for beauty's sake". As a former interior decorator even over a decade ago, people wanted coziness in their homes. That doesn't mean dark interiors..but they craved rooms where they felt safe, secure, grounded and very family friendly. All those smart homes will have to be updated as the technology advances....or simply as the mechanisms fail to work. ;-)
I for one don't want my home being monitored on a smart phone! We even have an old fashioned door bell you pull a string to ring! If I need to see whose at the door before I open it, I peek out a window :) ....and of course we have two wonderful dogs to alert us first.
We can and probably will get back to more stylish homes where craftsmanship matters.....when all these newer homes simply start to fall apart. They're not built to last......I dare say even our first home which was built in 1955 will outlast many of today's "slap 'em up fast" homes.
I admire your desire to wish for days back to more style/architecture in homes. The Bauhaus school had a lot to teach us as did many other older schools of architectural design. Maybe, just maybe, we can regain some of that. :)
@@uscitizen898 I completely agree about smart home tech! The only things "smarter" in my house are the water heater (whyyy) and the security system.
I've bought two new builds (2017 and 2021) and honestly I loved some things about them. I admit I'm a pragmatic designer, so I love some efficiency in plan. I don't like curves and corners that aren't well considered. They end up being wasteful spaces. Our 2021 build is an 1800sf ranch. I really love the layout (I spend so much time online looking at other residential designers and still like mine). I think the smaller (normal??) size means our open kitchen-dine-living feels like it fits and flows.
BUTTT my biggest concern is exacly the "slap 'em up fast" methodology. Yes, it's the only way I could ever afford a house, but I don't feel like things are built with materials or methods for longevity. The bones are sloppy and the materials cheapness makes things feel and sound...cheap.
Somehow there's a way to make housing for us all achievable while giving people the feeling of "home" that we all want. I'm cynical about our ability to change though. So for the love of all that is, I hope somebody breaks through!
Always a great presentation Ken! I’ll take on older historic house over the new cookie cutter ones ANYDAY!
This is a very good video. I would add a couple quick points. In the 19th century and back, most people did not live in the lovely homes we often think of from that period. Class and economic distinctions were much more prevalent. The middle class did not become a dominant part of society until the 20th century. Prior to that, poverty was the norm, not the exception. A broader recognition of labor rights and the income tax were huge contributors to the erosion of both poverty and the ranks of the super wealthy. Yes, evolving tastes, technology and the loss of certain trade skills have contributed to the shift away from those elaborate houses. But how one lives has almost always come down to money.
I agree, this video compares the ornate mansions owned by the rich to modern middle-class homes -- apples to oranges. The rich, during the Gilded Age and now, can build beautiful homes according to the latest style. These homes tend to survive the wrecking ball, so now it seems as if everyone must have lived in a Victorian spec home. Actually, the poor lived in shacks, shotgun houses, tenements -- no fancy ornamentation. The middle class lacked affordable housing options before these efficient cookie-cutter homes were designed. Prior to the 1950's, my ancestors lived with 6 or 8 people under one roof, multi-generations in one modest three-bedroom house. Now, I know many people who have their own house for just 1 or 2 people.
@@Test-xl8fz The best comment so far.
I loved seeing all the examples from the old parts of St. Louis. To further your point, many older neighborhoods have an identity. I immediately recognized Lafayette Square, Compton Heights, and Holly Hills in your video (all inner city St Louis neighborhoods.) However, the suburbs you were showing could be the suburbs of St. Louis, Kansas City, Cincinnati, etc. there's almost no identity to them.
I am in NZ; I was a real estate agent in 1999. I discovered that, house built before 70s in NZ is for one reason, for the master to live in. Built after 70s, are for one reason, for sale. Then who cares, to make $$$. So built very cheaply.
Great touch putting the name of the house on the reference photos!
I've had an 1870 Gothic Revival for 10 years. For 20 years before that, I had an 1884 Eastlake Victorian and for 5, preceding that a 27 room, brick Queen Ann. I ❤️ old homes.
Wow. You sure have/had great old homes. I love them too. God bless.
Stop the cap 😒🙄😒🙄😒🙄
@HighPowerOptionsTrades not everyone spends their life living in public housing.
There was plenty of mass production in the Victorian era, they just had higher standards. As far as open floor plans, they’re a terrible idea; if one part of your house is a mess then your whole house is a mess. The main problem is that we expect less and have been taught to settle for less.
Open plans are great in tropical climes, but in cold climatic zones, they're nothing but trouble.
Open plan is actually more space for less square footage. Love the concept: you can open up the dining or consolidate it, open up the kitchen, get less living room.
I scoured the country to find an open floor plan home in a nice setting. Every house I saw from Oregon to New York felt cramped. What i finally found is only 2000sqft, but feels like a palace because it's mostly one big box, with plenty of light - and a hallway to small bedrooms.
There were plenty of Victorian homes with lower standards too, but they haven't survived, so they go unmentioned in videos like this. This selection bias makes the whole exercise and apples to oranges comparison.
@@justinsayin3979 Yes but, and I've studied architecture all my life, so I'm pretty safe saying this; the lower standards of the Victorian era are probably equal today's normal standards.
I lived in an apartment building in Cleveland built in 1929, a beautiful Art Deco masterpiece, and in Lancaster County PA what had been a house built in 1852. Both in excellent condition. By contrast I lived in a house in CA built in the Seventies that was falling apart.
It’s simple. Those were rich people houses. Lower and middle class houses weren’t as grand back then, same as today. The only thing that has changed is the taste of rich people who prefer a more modern style of architecture nowadays
One big question is why the kind of architectural design and ornamentation that was considered affordable in the 1890's is suddenly considered cost prohibitive in the 2020's. I was of the general impression that productivity and GDP per capita had been increasing since then.
Cost is for sure the reason.
Productivity gains realized elsewhere in the economy, not housing construction (especially our antiquated stick-frame construction). And common misconceptions about wealth and housing… exquisite houses were always limited to the wealthy; now wealth is more concentrated and (related, crime) new mansions are largely isolated on large parcels and/or behind gates out-of-view.
My ‘mansion’ - 3-story Queen Anne Victorian, was bought as a handyman nightmare with a modest income. Won bidding war by waving all inspections/contingencies… no regrets tackling this 2nd of 3 handyman nightmares doing most work myself.
@@gr8dvd Good points, just one thing. If you look at working- and lower middle class dwellings from the New York tenement to the German "Mietskaserne", you'll see that in America as well as in Europe, such rentals did not lack in ornamentation or ceiling height, and possibly sometimes with the exception of the aforementioned tenement, they were also generally well built, made to last centuries. What the upper classes had to brag about was more in the veins of expensive building materials and interior spaciousness, not building quality or basic techniques, which should have been essentially the same and equally labour intensive. Just thought I'd point that out.
What I would personally be interested in building anew would precisely be this kind of latter 19th century to pre-WWI apartment building that you see (in old photos at least) lining the streets of Paris, Prague, Gothenburg, Riga, Munich and Berlin, and that's what my argument is really about, certainly not mansions for the wealthy or even necessarily private homes. But somehow they keep telling me "it's too expensive", while in fact we were able to do it on a mass scale 130 years ago!
By the way, congratulations on your Queen Anne Victorian! Doing most of one's work oneself is certainly a feat.👍
@@somerandomvertebrate9262 Interesting observations. But one reason older tenements were posh was b/c they were originally built for/by the wealthy. As cities declined beginning in the 1960s these architectural gems were ‘handed down’ even abandoned. Urban homesteading where tax defaulted townhouses sold for $1 was an attempt to reverse capital flight.
DIY was both financial necessity but also financially & personally rewarding. Background in architecture helped but a 1-day "apprenticeship" each with pro plumber & pro electrician was very helpful. Today’s housing prices are obscene… feel bad for young people starting-out.
Introduction of the income tax and the outsourcing of high paying jobs to foreign nations has reduced our ability as a nation. In the 1880s you could also mail order fine woodwork to adorn your house for not too much money. That was the advantage of the Eastlake architectural style for example. You could decorate your house cost efficiently. When those styles went out of style, it became prohibitively expensive to reproduce.
Thank you for this, This House. I live in a box down the street from beautiful Victorian homes. The prices just for my box are untenable. I like to daydream with TH content!
To a certain degree, this topic is comparing apples and oranges. For most of history, common people did not live in a styled house. If there appeared to be any style in their houses, it was coincidental to the building method. Like for instance, a tutor style house looked the way it did because of the building method. No one was intending for them to be picturesque. These beautiful old homes were built by the wealthy. The wealthy still build elaborate homes. Most are built in modern style. Occasionally, some are built in a more traditional style with elaborate, internal and external details.
Exactly. And because most of the more poorly-built houses of yesteryear no longer survive, they go unmentioned in videos like this.
I lived in a home that was 90 years old brought my family up in it needed much rehab it was a 30 year project. The neighborhood was where ford, dodge, alger, built homes.
I made a living restoring old homes. And yes, they DO have character. Simply beautiful. But the advantage of modern construction is energy efficiency -- they are tightly built and very well insulated. We can inject insulation into the wall cavities of historic homes, but we can't seal air leaks or stop the thermal bridging across the wood framing members. Today I live in a home with an insulated floor and rigid insulation between the sheathing and the siding, and it sure is nice to have environmental comfort and very, very low utility bills.
most modern homes have mold issues because the air is stagnant and moisture builds up
I am a fan of Victorian homes. The craftsmanship is undeniably fantastic. I loathe modern anything when it comes to homes or the interior renovations they do and ruin it.
@@flashflame4952 You are not alone!
I am absolutely with you!🤘
Yes, those people that buy priceless old house and trash the now irreplaceable ornamentations to turn the interior it into a cold science fiction "design". Why can't they do that to modern houses if that is what they like? One owner is all it takes to ruin a centennial or bi-centennial home.
I think Federal and colonials are my favorite style, but mid-century modern will always be fascinating to study.
100%
Exactly, @3:00 homes were places of hanging out and gathering. Today we have strip malls and other restaurant style places to gather. I would much prefer the olden days.