Product Description

Romance is in and Victorian design and architecture are as popular now as they were when Victorian was the contemporary style more than a hundred years ago. Often, people who buy a Victorian home have expertise in antiques of the era and can furnish a period living room or bedroom, but they are stymied when it comes to the kitchen and the bathroom. Victorian Kitchens and Baths solves this common dilemma by looking at the individual design, décor and architectural elements that make a room Victorian, offering a myriad of purist as well as interpretive ideas that can be used and adapted to fit many homes and tastes.

Victorian Kitchens & Baths is conveniently divided into four sections: Historic Victorian Kitchens and Baths, What Makes It Victorian, Borrowing Décor from the Parlor, and Contemporary Victorian Bathrooms and Kitchens. Focusing on historical and contemporary elements, Franklin and Esther Schmidt have created a book that appeals to serious aficionados and collectors of Victoriana as well as those who are simply interested in using certain Victorian-style elements in their contemporary homes. Full-color photography, sidebars from professionals, and decorating information accompany a huge range of projects and offer fresh information.

Product experts--and Victorian-era specialists--offer their unique perspectives, tips and ideas, including Erika Kotite, board member of the Victorian Society in America and editor of Victorian Homes magazine; and Patricia Poore, editor of Old House Interiors.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #230438 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 176 pages

From the Inside Flap
Victorian Kitchens & Baths takes an innovative excursion into the most romantic design period in history. Through dramatic photographs and casual, inviting text, author and photographer team Franklin and Esther Schmidt combine historical perspectives with current decorating principles and apply these ideas to contemporary kitchens and bathrooms.

Also included are unique perspectives and tips from renowned experts, such as Erika Kotite, editor of Victorian Homes magazine and Patricia Poore, editor of Old House Interiors, as well as a host of others.

Victorian Kitchens & Baths will guide you through extraordinary finished rooms by focusing on the details of Victorian design - room layout, cabinetry, molding and trim, colors, patterns and textiles, lighting, tiles, and art and antiques.

Complex and simple, historic and modern, these spectacular kitchens and bathrooms will inspire anyone interested in decor of the period to create their own look in the most functional rooms of their homes.

Both aficionados of Victorian high style as well as those who wish to translate just a few elements into their kitchen or bathroom will find design solutions that will capture the romantic appeal of Victorian style.

About the Author
Franklin and Esther Schmidt are a photography, styling, and writing team who have photographed and written about hundreds of homes. They have traveled to almost every state, producing articles and features for major magazines. Their work is featured in a variety of books as well as Architectural Digest, Old House Interiors, Antiques & Fine Art, Art & Antiques, Decorating, Country Home and Country Living. As field editors for Victorian Homes, Washington, DC, correspondents for Art & Antiques, and antiques columnists for Country Accents, they have focused their work on interior design as it relates to architecture and lifestyle. They have appeared on the Christopher Lowell television program as experts in photographing historic interiors.

Other books by the Schmidts include photography for PreFab Home and the best-selling Cabin Kitchens & Baths, which they wrote and photographed. Both of these are also published by Gibbs Smith, Publisher. The Schmidts are headquartered in the mountains of Virginia and have a studio in New York City.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Romance is in-again-which is probably why Victorian design and architecture are as popular now as they were from the middle of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century, when Victorian was the contemporary style. The essence of Victorian design lies in its warm woods, opulence, colors and patterns. But beyond the look, our continuing draw to it is based on ties to family histories and memories of past generations. Houses with turrets, gingerbread and multiple porches are being bought or built by people with a passion for preservation, an eye for romantic high style and a love of the pieces of the past we can make our own. It's a contagious enthusiasm that doesn't dissipate.

Those who buy or build Victorian often have expertise in antiques of the era and can knowledgeably furnish a period living room or bedroom, but when it comes to doing the kitchen or bathroom, they are stymied. There are also those who are not necessarily aficionados of Victorian high style, but are drawn to certain elements that they would like to translate into their more contemporary homes, particularly in their kitchens and bathrooms.

Mid-nineteenth and early twentieth-century kitchens were almost solely utilitarian workrooms, the denizen of the servants and not of the family. Today's kitchen has evolved into a household social center where work, leisure and entertainment combine to create an environment that needs to be attractive as well as functional. Islands, eating nooks, window treatments, artwork and investment in the most attractive and up-to-date appliances (or the most effective way of disguising them) can make the kitchen the greatest financial investment in a house.

Customer Reviews

Victorian dream
This is a wonderful book for anyone dreaming of restoring a Victorian home. Lots of pictures but also well researched and interesting text. Helpful for those of us who do not want to model "mimic" our rooms after a specific photo spread in a book, but would like to understand, incorporate, and enjoy the historic details of our beautiful homes.

aims high, falls short
Plenty of eye candy to drool over and a nice variety of photos from over-the-top high-end rooms to simple log cabins, especially for those who are more interested in "period inspired" than "period accurate". (For that, get Jane Powell's book "Bungalow Bathrooms".) However, it suffers in the editing department. The book is a conglomeration of short articles by a bunch of different authors rather than a single author's work. Typos and misused homonyms disrupted the flow of reading. Some factual errors were particularly irritating: for instance, "It marks a period of 'balloon construction', which implies that moldings and other architectural elements would no longer be molded into place individually or carved one by one. Rather they would come in strips and be shipped from factories in bulk." I'd like some of what that contributor was smoking, because it was apparently pretty good stuff - balloon construction referred to a specific style of FRAMING a house, it has nothing to do with the moldings. If you want information on the history of household sanitation and on residential construction of the Victorian era, read something else, this one's primarily for the pictures.