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General Advice on Victorian living
Welcome to the General Advice area of The Victorian Emporium. Here you can view and read all of our advice articles on their various subjects.
How To Make Victorian Wassail Punch
This warming Christmas drink was originally part of pagan ritual to ensure good health and a plentiful apple harvest, and would have been drunk in midwinter in the apple orchards.
How To Make Victorian Wassail Punch
How To Make Victorian Wassail Punch This warming Christmas drink was originally part of pagan ritual to ensure good health and a plentiful apple harvest, and would have been drunk in midwinter in the apple orchards. By Victorian times, the drink was still one to wish good health but was served to carol singers who were invited into the house to warm themselves with a drink from the wassail bowl. Here's how to make your own Victorian…
The Victorian Dinner Party
Victorian dinner parties were opportunities to show one’s affluence and style and sometimes a hostess would choose a theme.
The Victorian Dinner Party
The Victorian dinner party was a grand, flamboyant and opulent affair. Picture if you will an endless procession of soups, fish, meats, salads, vegetables, puddings, ices, meringues and pastries served on exquisitely decorated china and serving dishes and a dining table heavily decorated with flowers, ferns and stands of fruit and decorated cakes. By the mid 1870’s it was not uncommon for up to 12 or 13 courses to be served by the…
What To Look For In A Traditional Victorian Radiator
Traditional radiators fall into two main camps: plain column radiators, that are usually white but sometimes black or grey. These are usual sold in an array of standard sizes and number of columns.
What To Look For In A Traditional Victorian Radiator
Traditional radiators are becoming more popular. 10 years ago they were a specialist item and not in common demand, however more recently, with the vogue for period house restoration, there is more competition in the manufacture and sale of traditional style heating solutions. There are is a choice of many different styles, sizes, heat outputs and prices for a traditional Victorian radiator. And because of the competition, prices have…
Using Decorative Curtain Accessories
The curtain pole is the most important curtain accessory as without a curtain pole the curtain would be unable to hang in front of the window.
Using Decorative Curtain Accessories
There is no point spending a lot of money on a beautiful luxurious curtain fabric and then skimping on the curtain accessories that you use. Curtain accessories and the curtains themselves should be seen as an investment as if you buy good quality products, with proper care they should last you a decade or more. Curtain accessories are best thought of as a whole rather than piecemeal as you will most likely wish to get decorative curtain…
Choosing Victorian Style Bathroom Accessories
Bathrooms and kitchens in Victorian houses were functional rather than decorative and glamorous and as such the bathroom accessories that you choose should be functional and easy to clean if you wish to keep with the Victorian style.
Choosing Victorian Style Bathroom Accessories
Bathrooms are not typically Victorian – only the house of the middle and upper classes would have had bathrooms in Victorian times. So if you live in a typical Victorian workers terraced house, a bathroom would have been a new introduction to your house possibly around the 1950s. As such if you wish to recreate an authentic Victorian bathroom you will never be recreating one that was in your house originally. Just this mere fact in…
Essential elements of Victorian Kitchen Design
An important aspect of Victorian kitchen design was that all surfaces and wall coverings were washable. Larger Victorian kitchens would have a large central table for the preparation of meals, usually made of pine so that it could be scrubbed clean with sand,…
Essential elements of Victorian Kitchen Design
The Victorian kitchen was essentially the heart of the home – the room where the kitchen range stood, where water was heated and where food was prepared and cooked. The Victorian kitchen range was a multi purpose piece of kit which comprised ovens, a boiler and hobs around a central coal fire which was built into the fireplace. So it was naturally a place where people gathered in order to keep warm, eat and relax.
Tiles for Victorian porches
The Victorian porch provided ample opportunity to show this facet of the Victorians to the full. The typical Victorian porch would be reached after a short walk from the gate, up the tiled pathway, and then up a step or two.
Tiles for Victorian porches
The Victorians were always keen to show others the extent of their wealth and good taste, and as such their houses should be viewed within this context. Ornate plasterwork, decorative wooden mouldings, chandeliers, decorative gates and railings should all be seen as ways of demonstrating to any guests the prosperity and regard for aesthetics of the householder.
How a Victorian bathroom can enhance your period renovation
The typical bathroom was decorated fairly spartanly with tiling, usually white or off white, sometimes with elements of black; gloss painted walls or varnished paper above the dado level; simple tiles, linoleum or bleached pine floorboards on the floor for ease…
How a Victorian bathroom can enhance your period renovation
A bathroom was an innovation of the Victorian era. Previously a tin bath in front of the fire was used in the bedrooms of the grander houses. The maid or servant then had the onerous job of transporting hot water from the kitchen range where it had been boiled on the stove top, up the stairs and into the bath, which was both arduous and time consuming. Often the water was not even still very hot by the time the bath had been filled and…
Choosing Victorian Wooden Mouldings And Wood Coving
Wood mouldings can really enhance the interior décor of a Victorian or period house.
Choosing Victorian Wooden Mouldings And Wood Coving
Wood mouldings can really enhance the interior décor of a Victorian or period house. The house would have originally had a wide variety of decorative Victorian wooden mouldings and ideally these should all be present in any good period or Victorian house restoration.
Choosing Victorian Door Knobs, Handles, And Furniture
Door handles and door knobs are a key element of ironmongery for both the interior and the exterior of a house, and this is especially the case for period properties.
Choosing Victorian Door Knobs, Handles, And Furniture
Victorian door knobs, handles and furniture are a key element of ironmongery for both the interior and the exterior of a house, and this is especially the case for period properties. We have all seen the impressive and interesting designs chosen for front door knockers and door knobs on Victorian front doors. These were usually selected or commissioned as a set with the door knob, door knocker, letterbox and bell all matching, often made…