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Late Victorian house, is it a folk victorian?
Hello everyone! My wife and I just bought an old victorian house. We are stationed in Germany but are leaving soon to Ohio (where this house is). This house was built (according to the info on the listing and agent) in 1917. I think it was built before that, but I will have to do some further research. It has 10 rooms, full basement, big attic, and it is around 3048 sq ft. I would consider it a folk victorian but not sure. I thought it might be some kind of kit house (like sears made) but it is made of brick (that someone painted blue). All the kit houses I saw were wood sided. I have some pictures of it and can add a few more if ppl want to see it. The "parlor" area has 2 sets of pocket doors. The pantry on the first floor was made into a 1/2 bath (the delivery door at the back of the house still exists). There is a front staircase and a back bulters staircase. There are 4 bedrooms upstairs, a small full bathroom and linen closet. The master bedroom has 2 closets and some kind of sitting room that you have to go though before you get to the bedroom. It still has 3 fireplaces, but I think there were also 3 upstairs as well. Of the 3 that are there, 1 is slate and the other 2 have wood mantels. I have been trying to find a floor plan or at least another house that looks similar to it but haven't found any luck on the internet. Maybe someone here knows more than me :) Its a great old house and I look forward to working on it!!
Tags: folk, victorian?
Views: 2046
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Russ Savory on -
You can find floor plans of similar homes published by Dover Publications. "100 Turn of the Century Houseplans" is a good example. Your home is not really Victorian, however. The Victorian era fizzled out in the 1890's. Your home appears to be more akin to a craftsman or colonial revival foursquare. It is likely a wood frame house with a brick veneer; the original owners had enough money to add brick and, obviously, some very nice mantels. We have a similar example built in 1909 with a stone veneer. It looks like you have a very interesting and rewarding project on your hands. Congratulations and good luck!
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Permalink Reply by Martin on -
Thanks for the info!!I will have to look if the brick is veneer. It isn't a foursquare or at least a typical kind. You really can't see the rest of the house in this shot. It is more of a lower case t shape or cross. I could see a crasftsman type house though. I did add a bunch of picts of the house to my album. I was also unsure of the iron work on the front and back porch. The back porch looks much more ornate (with dentil molding), but I am trying to figure out if any of the iron work is orig. to the house or was added later. I have seen other houses in the area with the same type of wrought iron though.
It did cross my mind before if the exterior was veneer, but after checking on the inside, beating around on walls, and seeing how they routed outlets on the outside of the baseboards or in the space where pocket doors used to be, I am 85% sure this house is not brick veneer. But then again, you might be right. I will have to do some checking. Again, I am not totally sure about the houses age either. I will get more pictures up soon. It will be a interesting project to work on! :)
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Permalink Reply by John Rodgers on -
it's hard to tell from the pictures, but are the fireplaces coal burning?
Not an expert by any means, but I would be willing to bet that the wrought iron is not original to the home. It looks very similar to some of the terrible 'improvements' we have here in town---typically from the 60s or 70s. The reason you see it on other homes is the 'keeping up with the joneses' effect. All it takes is one home to do it,and then the original features start disappearing to be replaced with the more modern material of the time.
Beautiful home regardless, definitely going to be a fun project for you. Do you intend to strip the blue and expose the original brick?
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Permalink Reply by Russ Savory on
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By "veneer" I mean that the brick is not structural, i.e. doesn't support joists. The iron work was probably added in the sixties or seventies to replace rotted wood columns or to keep up with the Jones's.
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Permalink Reply by Martin on
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Yes, I believe the fireplaces were coal burning. One was converted to gas long ago. The old insert is still in there. I didn't think the iron was original with the home. Wasn't that some kind of fad in the 60s? I don't know why the back porch iron work looks better than the front porch. I would like to put some wood posts back on the front porch. I don't like how the made both porches concrete :( On the inside, where it looks like cracks in the walls in pictures, it is actually the current wallpaper comming off. They painted over it, and under it I saw at least 3 different types of wallpaper. I am going to have to get some more books since I am not really familiar with houses from this era. At least most of the old hardware is still there. Once I get going on the house I would like to make a restoration blog. Here are some more pictures (be sure to check out my album) :)
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Permalink Reply by Phil on -
To my eye, this house does not look to be any newer than maybe 1905 and may well be 10 years older than that. The bay window with gable on top of it looks quite victorian. The grand stairway is very fancy, and looks turn of the century to me. I have to squint, but are those bullseye plinth blocks in the corners of the stained glass window moulding? If so, those were pretty much dead in the 20th century. The tiling on the fireplace also looks to be older than 1917.
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Permalink Reply by Martin on
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Hello Phil. Actually, ALL the windows have the bullseye plinth blocks, as well as the doorways. I added a few pictures too. I thought the house looks more pre 1910 to me, since all the houses that looked similar were much older than houses made in 1917. I think by 1917, there were more foursquare types and ranch type houses being built. I added a few pictures so you can see the mouldings better and entry hallway.
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Permalink Reply by Martin on
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I forgot to answer about getting rid of the blue paint. It depends on if I can strip it without too many problems. I would like to expose the original brick once again. There is some re pointing I need to do first though. The downspouts need fixed and some other cosmetic issues, but at least the roof is new. I have already been in contact with the local historical society so they will be a big help to me.
I see what you mean about the brick being veener russ. I was only in the house once for a couple hrs so I didn't get to check. I do know, even if it is veneer, it makes it hard to run electrical!! I am going to have to figure something out. I don't want to put outlets into the floor like I have seen in some houses. One set of pocket doors was taken out, and they used the space left to put in a couple outlets. I want to correct that for sure!!
Once I am back in the states, I can do a good walk though and take pictures of all the details. The last time I was there, it was more of checking for problems. :)
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Permalink Reply by Phil on
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Nice woodwork. Really nice. Very similar to my 1895, but almost all of mine was painted. Maybe right around 1900 is my new guess. Those bullseyes date it backwards. The staircase, which is also very nice, has some urn-like finials, which suggests early colonial revival influence to me, also common by the late 1890s. When you get back to it, or acquire new photos of the walls, look for bricks that are laid perpendicular to the wall every 6th or 8th row. If you have that (I have a picture on my photo gallery if you click over to that), then your house has structural brick. If they are all uniformly laid, then it is a brick veneer. Mine is the structural brick, but at least here in PA, very few homes built after mine (1894/5) are that way, and plenty built before that in the 1890s were already veneer. Either way, you can use peel away to remove the paint, but I would make that a last priority, because it doesn't look bad to me at all.
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Permalink Reply by Martin on
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Thanks!! I think the only wood work that was painted was in the kitchen (which needs redone) and the upstairs bathroom. The exteior is in pretty good shape, other than some repoint work that is needed. I didn't think the 1917 date sounded right to me, but what do real estate agents know. Right behind this house is the historic main street district where all the big old mansions are located. I think turn of the century sounds a lot more accurate. I will dig into the archives and see what I find. I would like to change the front porch since I think the iron work is kind of ugly and out of place.
I will check on the brick. It could very well been veneer. I will get my inlaws to take some more pictures for me. The exterior pictures I have are not very detailed so I can't really tell. Thanks for everyones help thus far! All the info help me out a lot! :)
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Permalink Reply by jane on -
If your walls are 3 bricks deep - if they have the soldiers ( the bricks laid perpendicular) that hold the rows together - the exterior walls are structural. But that does not mean your wood frame is supported on the brick. I hope it isn't because the joint between the brick and the wood is often also the dew point and the frame will get wet and rot. Most likely if your exterior walls are structural your house is framed inside the brick and connected for stability. The last one I looked at was tied in in the attic.
That means you may have space between the brick walls and the interior walls for wiring. I have also just seen a thicker new baseboard run which allowed the wiring to run in front of the brick wall.
My own house, c. 1815, wood, has 2-3" thick interior walls - plaster directly on the studs which were boards. Our electricity comes up from below, down from above or is exposed conduit painted to match the walls. A dust catcher but otherwise non-intrusive - and does the job safely.
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Permalink Reply by Martin on
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Thanks for the info!! I think the brick is just veneer like you guys were saying. I will do a check when I go back and start working on the house, but I think it is veneer. Our wiring was set up similar too. I saw knob and tube in the attic. Then I also saw one room with exposed conduit running along the base boards, then there was the wiring comming up from the basement. My inlaws will be going down to do some work on our house here soon and they told me they would take a lot of pictures and do more exploring. I will find out for sure here soon. I still wonder about when this house was actually made. I think the floor plan is "circular".. where you either go straight ahead into one room, or to the parlor off to the right of the entrance.. then both of those rooms connect to the dining room. I will keep everyone updated once I have more information :)
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