Steve and Julie's Victorian Home

Friday, April 22, 2005

Digging and preparing stump holes. Note that normally such machines get over the base brickwork on ramps, but we were fortunate that the brickies were not quite ready to finish, so a gap was left in the base brickwork for the machine to traverse through.

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Background to the Design

The design of our house is based on very late Victorian architecture, as seen in Melbourne, Australia during the years 1895 to 1905. Technically, the Victorian period ended in 1901 when Queen Victoria died. This was at the same time that Australia was undergoing federation into a collection of states, with a centralised national goverment. In Australia, housing built from 1901 to around 1914 is referred to as "Federation style" (which might be considered to be an Australian version of British "Edwardian" architecture). Our house is mainly Victorian in style, but has tiny hints of Federation in it (e.g. glazed front door).

Our aim is to create a house that is strongly representative of the late Victorian style. We cannot duplicate it, as materials and techniques have changed too much in the last 100 years to do that. Key features of our Victorian home are:

* 3.6m (12ft) ceilings throughout
* Hawthorn bricks, with contrast bands and detailing
* External mouldings and quoins
* Slate roof with galvanised cappings (not zinc-alume)
* Suppressed roof line (with central valley)
* Large double-hung windows, with counter-weighted sash balances
* Suspended timber floor on stumps and strip footing

The external appearance of our house is based on that of Coolattie, a Victorian home in Canterbury, Victoria, Australia. That home was designed by Richard Malvern Gutheridge, built in 1897, and is registered on the Melbourne Mansions Database, published by Miles Lewis.

Above: Coolattie, a Melbourne home built during the transition from Victorian to Federation.

You can find a summary of Australian architectural styles at:
"What House is That?" or at
"A Guide to Australian Style"

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Steve and Julie's Victorian Home

Friday, April 22, 2005

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Background to the Design