You forget that those who were not part of the upper crust never had old craftsman made homes. Their homes have since been destroyed and replaced with modern homes. The rich still build fancy homes.
Ya survivorship bias. Like there were tone of wooden buildings in ancient times and were the majority, but only the most massive stone structures survived.
Correct. We are living through post modernism with Brutal architecture. Right angle here and a right angle there. Heck just look at how the schools perfectly mimic jails.
It shows the quality of life of the upper class more than anyone else. Most middle-and-lower class homes and properties have historically been destroyed to make way for other things, leaving only the properties of people rich enough to avoid it.
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.
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.
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!"
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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???
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
..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.
I actually have a book from 1925 that goes into great detail regarding plastering homes and buildings and how to do the custom terra cotta moldings that surrounded doors and made the front of the building "fancy". Its very detailed about angular sand, how much horse hair, tools, technique etc etcetc. Plaster how plaster is supposed to be done.
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.
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 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!
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.
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.
Thanks for sharing, I was just having this same discussion last week with my Mother! We were saying what a shame it is that the creativity has vanished from modern home building. PS- love what you've done so far with your place 👍
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 cost of building a house now is in the 100s of thousands of dollars or more You want anything fancy you can double and triple the cost Plus we dont have the skilled tradesmen any more to build theses mansions Plus the up keep would cost a fortune
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.
We bought a 1928 California home in a historic neighborhood. The neighborhood is beautiful. Mature trees, each home is different. Mainly, mock Tudor, California ranch, Spanish Revival, Italianate, English Cottage, Craftsman. Spaced far apart, plenty of privacy. We are so lucky. The con is plumbing. Restoring the homes is expensive. The home are between 2 and 9 million dollars. So, not as practical as a tract home.
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!
One of the important things not mentioned is “land”. Today’s land is at a premium. Where once a mansion was built, today ten or more homes occupy that space. Land is so expensive today that we actually build houses ten feet, one from the other. The other issue not mentioned is the population growth/density. Today we need to accommodate thousands where less then one hundred lived in years past.
We have a really active historical district where I live. I enjoy going on the Christmas home tour every year. Every year there seems to be more and more of the old homes being restored to their former glory. One of the things that I have noticed is often times, the contractor rips down all the external wood and rewires and plumbs and insulates the home to modern standards, then puts the exterior cladding back on the house. Not always, but some of the homes have interesting murals on the interior walls that the owners want to preserve. One thing most of the renovated homes have in common, the owner spent about a million dollars renovating the home. When we moved our realtor asked us how we felt about renovating one of the historic homes downtown. I said no thank you, I love looking at them, but we had small children at the time and wanted someplace that was ready to move into, not a project.
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.
Homes built prior to WWII, regardless of size, were built to LIVE in. Today's shoe boxes are disposable sheds to store the car and sleep in. We now LIVE at our jobs, EAT at crappy chain restaurants, and spend our free time just walking in big box stores. Yes we worked hard in the earlier era, but it seems we have no lives outside on this anymore. People entertained at their homes, spent more time with family there, cooked there, had hobbies like woodworking or Ham radio in the back shed, etc. The home was central to their lives. This is why they invested so much to make it theirs. Now, we just think of its resell value. Yes, you can tell I am a little pessimistic about these days.
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.
The primary reason we don't see houses of yesteryear any more is because carpentry went from being a high skilled trade to a low skilled trade. It use to be that at one point carpenters had to know and apply geometry. Additionally, do you recall the guy who knocked up his gf when he was 17 and use to sit at the back of the class? Or how about that guy who was released from prison? Those are the guys who primarily occupy construction and contracting today. Being a carpenter and/or a handyman use to be respectable professions/jobs. Not anymore.
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.
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'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.
Why dont we build like that anymore? Short answer is money. Economy of scales means mass produced boxes means lower cost to the customer. Custom made things will always be more expensive.
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.
A lot of the people that buy historic victorean houses around here find that they are impossibly expensive to maintain and after a few years move to a condo. Your video footage does a great job showing that modern houses look like they were assembled from some sort of ikea prefabed kits.
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.
"Is it possible to build homes like we ised to?" shows survivor bias. Most of the U.S. homes from 1880's are gone for good reasons. The remaining homes are those with the best craftsmanship that were worth maintaining and repairing for over a 100 years.
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.👍
I love gilded age mansions. Each one is so unique, I love all of the intricate details and the ornamentation. I wish they still made houses like these. Now they're just plain boxes with no details that stand out.
Excellent video. Another major cultural shift has been the automobile. It became common in the 1940s to have one vehicle per household; now it’s 2, 3 or 4. Most home buyers in my city won’t consider a house unless it has a double attached garage in the front and a detached (or at least space for one) in the rear. In other words, the vehicles take top priority. This has massively changed how developers built single detached homes. The cul-de-sacs in my neighborhood are basically just parking lots.
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.
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.
@ThisHouse - Ken, I'd absolutely _LOVE_ to build a brand new Queen Anne Victorian with all the gorgeous details and craftsmanship, but have it it - naturally - with floor heating, central a/c, computer controlled lighting etc, solar panel roof triple glazing and super insulated. And of course on a suitable plot of land for such a house (as a _minimum_ 1acre).
I don't think so. For every beautiful house you see there were hundreds of ticky tacky all look just the same houses, and it's not because that's what people preferred.
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!
In the late 1940s my grandfather built the family home that my mom would grow up in. It was a simple ranch house, a bit funky with an add-on master bedroom that was basically an enclosed porch on a split level with a wood stove in it. The walls were all knotty pine and it had built-in bookcases in the living room. When it was sold in 2013 the kitchen was still painted in the pastel colors it had been for many years and with sparkly Formica counters. The buyer was an artist who claimed to love the retro aesthetic of the place. Fast forward a decade and the house came up on the market again. Some interior decorator had painted every wall and surface gray. It was modern but also so depressingly bland.
The military was a fraction of what we have, not to mention no-tech. No Social Security. Deaths and injuries on the job vastly higher than today. Children working in coal mines. No unemployment insurance. No medical tech so no medical insurance needed. No interstate highways or traffic signals for that matter.
St. Louis had the richest clay deposits in the country due to the confluence of the muddy Mississippi and Missouri rivers. We were able to make an abundance of high quality bricks very cheaply and ship them all over the country via rail car. Brick making was so prosperous that the supply of clay and coal has been depleted, making those resources more precious. Today, vacant buildings are being pillaged for their signature red brick because they’re worth a lot of money. We still make bricks but the costs have skyrocketed for a number of reasons. The clay soil is something that took millions of years to create and the demand far exceeds the natural supply. Not to mention, the culture craftsmanship that came along with the experimentation due to the freedom of frivolity thanks to their low costs.
the comedy is old brick is worth MORE than new brick!! But Fun Fact: on the west coast the grain ships to asia would return with ballast in the holds: chinese red brick. if fact, the colour is called "Chinese Red". Chinatowns all up/down the west coast were built with that brick, and Gastown in Vancouver, Canada. some chinese families stil own the buildings 140 years later, including the Tong Socieites and old chinese money. One guy went to school in Berkeley with my father in law!!
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.
I want to live a more formal lifestyle. I want to live a more craft centric life as well. I want a parlor in my home for entertaining guests and I will dine with formality.
One of those homes is an investment built to last 100 years or more… a cheaply constructed plasterboard and spackle McMansion needs constant repairs and is a liability after 20 years. While it may seem expensive, it’s far cheaper over the expected lifespan.
Most people don’t go to an architect and commission custom homes anymore. They go to a developer and choose from the available plans or buy what’s already available.
However, during the Gilded Age most ordinary people lived in houses without proper plumbing and electricity. You are showing the homes of the upper-middle class and rich. They could afford to build those homes because the builders got paid peanuts in comparison to today. Also, professional middle-class households had servants in those days. The wives stayed at home and the husband made the money. The wives ran the household and staff. Nowadays most households have to hold down two jobs to get by and there is no money for servants or 20 room mansions with bespoke architectural features. The way real estate prices are going most people will again be homeless or living in tenements in the not so distant future. However, that is not to say that these old homes aren't beautiful and, perhaps, we should bring some of that styling back. People do respond very favorably to traditional architecture and what most modern architects consider beautiful doesn't necessarily resonate with most people.
Yes. Houses are so bland and uniform these days due to massive cost savings. If you were to build a Victorian style home today with those materials would be millions and millions of dollars for a similar sized house.
@ for sure. Especially with the current labor and skill situation. That amount of detail would be insane. Just saying the current dollar amount for anything is just not what it’s worth. Grandfather was an employee making below the national median for the time. He chopped the wood and got most of the raw mats himself. His house is a Queen Ann styled American home and he built it via a plan he got second hand from a friend.
You forget that those who were not part of the upper crust never had old craftsman made homes. Their homes have since been destroyed and replaced with modern homes. The rich still build fancy homes.
Unfortunately the rich seem to have increasingly bad taste the more wealth they accumulate
Exactly the video is comparing middle class homes of today to wealthy homes of earlier times
the rich do not in fact build fancy homes they build bigger ugly homes
Ya survivorship bias. Like there were tone of wooden buildings in ancient times and were the majority, but only the most massive stone structures survived.
yes, most people lived in squalor housings, like log cabins, mud brick houses with thatched roof.
dozen people in a room of single room houses.
My dad was an architect and I learned that architecture shows the quality of life for a culture.
This is really profound
Wow. This is so insightful
Absolutely
Correct. We are living through post modernism with Brutal architecture. Right angle here and a right angle there. Heck just look at how the schools perfectly mimic jails.
It shows the quality of life of the upper class more than anyone else. Most middle-and-lower class homes and properties have historically been destroyed to make way for other things, leaving only the properties of people rich enough to avoid it.
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.
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.
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!"
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".
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
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.
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.
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
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.
yess.... *_YEESSSSS!!_*
Finally, a video on how homes have become factory-manufactured boxes w/ blank, open, characterless interiors.
Yes
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!
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”
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.
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.
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.
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.
I feel like one thing most architects have in common is a reverence for historical architecture.
I feel like one thing most architects have in common is a resp
@@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
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.
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.
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???
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 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.
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.
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.
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
The older Victorian era homes were so beautiful… I would love to own one ❤️
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.
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.
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
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!
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.
It's My dream to own a historic home. Great architectural style
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.
“Material was more readily available in the 1800’s” - yet we have stores everywhere and international trading on large scale today.
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!
New homes are SOUL CRUSHING. They feel like refugee housing no matter the size
It is my goal in life to buy or build a house that has those Old World details.
If you have enough money you can build anything you want
..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!
I actually have a book from 1925 that goes into great detail regarding plastering homes and buildings and how to do the custom terra cotta moldings that surrounded doors and made the front of the building "fancy". Its very detailed about angular sand, how much horse hair, tools, technique etc etcetc. Plaster how plaster is supposed to be done.
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.
00:26 These houses are so terribly depressing.
Little boxes Little boxes 😂😂
Beautiful. I love the old style partition over open concept any day
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.
The house at 0:11 is absolutely gorgeous!
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!
1:27 lol those houses are still mansions I'd never be able to afford.
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.
I love the craftsman style homes and mid century modern.
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.
Thanks for sharing, I was just having this same discussion last week with my Mother! We were saying what a shame it is that the creativity has vanished from modern home building.
PS- love what you've done so far with your place 👍
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 cost of building a house now is in the 100s of thousands of dollars or more
You want anything fancy you can double and triple the cost
Plus we dont have the skilled tradesmen any more to build theses mansions
Plus the up keep would cost a fortune
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.
We bought a 1928 California home in a historic neighborhood. The neighborhood is beautiful. Mature trees, each home is different. Mainly, mock Tudor, California ranch, Spanish Revival, Italianate, English Cottage, Craftsman. Spaced far apart, plenty of privacy. We are so lucky. The con is plumbing. Restoring the homes is expensive. The home are between 2 and 9 million dollars. So, not as practical as a tract home.
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!
One of the important things not mentioned is “land”.
Today’s land is at a premium. Where once a mansion was built, today ten or more homes occupy that space. Land is so expensive today that we actually build houses ten feet, one from the other.
The other issue not mentioned is the population growth/density. Today we need to accommodate thousands where less then one hundred lived in years past.
Also, these homes were expensive as hell in the gilded age and would be just as expensive today. So it already narrows it down.
We have a really active historical district where I live. I enjoy going on the Christmas home tour every year. Every year there seems to be more and more of the old homes being restored to their former glory. One of the things that I have noticed is often times, the contractor rips down all the external wood and rewires and plumbs and insulates the home to modern standards, then puts the exterior cladding back on the house. Not always, but some of the homes have interesting murals on the interior walls that the owners want to preserve. One thing most of the renovated homes have in common, the owner spent about a million dollars renovating the home. When we moved our realtor asked us how we felt about renovating one of the historic homes downtown. I said no thank you, I love looking at them, but we had small children at the time and wanted someplace that was ready to move into, not a project.
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.
My theory: Boston Dynamics robots with AI tools will become our 'craftsmen' and usher in a new era of intricate design.
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.
Homes built prior to WWII, regardless of size, were built to LIVE in. Today's shoe boxes are disposable sheds to store the car and sleep in. We now LIVE at our jobs, EAT at crappy chain restaurants, and spend our free time just walking in big box stores. Yes we worked hard in the earlier era, but it seems we have no lives outside on this anymore. People entertained at their homes, spent more time with family there, cooked there, had hobbies like woodworking or Ham radio in the back shed, etc. The home was central to their lives. This is why they invested so much to make it theirs. Now, we just think of its resell value. Yes, you can tell I am a little pessimistic about these days.
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.
The primary reason we don't see houses of yesteryear any more is because carpentry went from being a high skilled trade to a low skilled trade. It use to be that at one point carpenters had to know and apply geometry. Additionally, do you recall the guy who knocked up his gf when he was 17 and use to sit at the back of the class? Or how about that guy who was released from prison? Those are the guys who primarily occupy construction and contracting today. Being a carpenter and/or a handyman use to be respectable professions/jobs. Not anymore.
You paint with a very broad brush.
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.
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'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.
Why dont we build like that anymore? Short answer is money. Economy of scales means mass produced boxes means lower cost to the customer. Custom made things will always be more expensive.
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.
A lot of the people that buy historic victorean houses around here find that they are impossibly expensive to maintain and after a few years move to a condo. Your video footage does a great job showing that modern houses look like they were assembled from some sort of ikea prefabed kits.
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.
"Is it possible to build homes like we ised to?" shows survivor bias. Most of the U.S. homes from 1880's are gone for good reasons. The remaining homes are those with the best craftsmanship that were worth maintaining and repairing for over a 100 years.
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.👍
I love gilded age mansions. Each one is so unique, I love all of the intricate details and the ornamentation. I wish they still made houses like these. Now they're just plain boxes with no details that stand out.
Always a great presentation Ken! I’ll take on older historic house over the new cookie cutter ones ANYDAY!
Excellent video. Another major cultural shift has been the automobile. It became common in the 1940s to have one vehicle per household; now it’s 2, 3 or 4. Most home buyers in my city won’t consider a house unless it has a double attached garage in the front and a detached (or at least space for one) in the rear. In other words, the vehicles take top priority. This has massively changed how developers built single detached homes. The cul-de-sacs in my neighborhood are basically just parking lots.
Great touch putting the name of the house on the reference photos!
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.
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.
Not everyone 100 years ago lived in bespoke homes or mansions.
Exactly. For every one of those beautiful homes, there were 100 ramshackle houses built from scrap wood.
@ThisHouse - Ken, I'd absolutely _LOVE_ to build a brand new Queen Anne Victorian with all the gorgeous details and craftsmanship, but have it it - naturally - with floor heating, central a/c, computer controlled lighting etc, solar panel roof triple glazing and super insulated. And of course on a suitable plot of land for such a house (as a _minimum_ 1acre).
Why "can't" is different than why "won't".
What I'm hearing is that we are poorer today than they were back then due to manipulative regulatory policies and taxation.
I don't think so. For every beautiful house you see there were hundreds of ticky tacky all look just the same houses, and it's not because that's what people preferred.
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!
In the late 1940s my grandfather built the family home that my mom would grow up in. It was a simple ranch house, a bit funky with an add-on master bedroom that was basically an enclosed porch on a split level with a wood stove in it. The walls were all knotty pine and it had built-in bookcases in the living room. When it was sold in 2013 the kitchen was still painted in the pastel colors it had been for many years and with sparkly Formica counters. The buyer was an artist who claimed to love the retro aesthetic of the place. Fast forward a decade and the house came up on the market again. Some interior decorator had painted every wall and surface gray. It was modern but also so depressingly bland.
These people didn't have to give 30% of their incone to the government.
No. They horribly edploited the working classes to obtain their wealth.
Yep, they pocketed nearly their entire $3k annual salary.
The military was a fraction of what we have, not to mention no-tech. No Social Security. Deaths and injuries on the job vastly higher than today. Children working in coal mines. No unemployment insurance. No medical tech so no medical insurance needed. No interstate highways or traffic signals for that matter.
St. Louis had the richest clay deposits in the country due to the confluence of the muddy Mississippi and Missouri rivers. We were able to make an abundance of high quality bricks very cheaply and ship them all over the country via rail car. Brick making was so prosperous that the supply of clay and coal has been depleted, making those resources more precious. Today, vacant buildings are being pillaged for their signature red brick because they’re worth a lot of money. We still make bricks but the costs have skyrocketed for a number of reasons. The clay soil is something that took millions of years to create and the demand far exceeds the natural supply. Not to mention, the culture craftsmanship that came along with the experimentation due to the freedom of frivolity thanks to their low costs.
I live in a cream city brick home in the Milwaukee area and it is the same here with those bricks. They are no longer produced.
Gotta love StL redbricks 😊⚜️
The Lou is the most underrated city in the world! 🫶
Meanwhile in Mexico brick is still being made but concrete block is far and away a more common building material. Mostly due to cost.
the comedy is old brick is worth MORE than new brick!! But Fun Fact: on the west coast the grain ships to asia would return with ballast in the holds: chinese red brick. if fact, the colour is called "Chinese Red". Chinatowns all up/down the west coast were built with that brick, and Gastown in Vancouver, Canada. some chinese families stil own the buildings 140 years later, including the Tong Socieites and old chinese money. One guy went to school in Berkeley with my father in law!!
I think another aspect is cleanliness. Fancy, custom walls and furniture are a nightmare to keep clean.
Yes,just the detailing work would be a dusting nightmare.
Excellent report, Ken.
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.
I never liked the open concept. It makes your heating and air conditioning bills more expensive.
I want to live a more formal lifestyle. I want to live a more craft centric life as well. I want a parlor in my home for entertaining guests and I will dine with formality.
Great job. Very interesting.
One of those homes is an investment built to last 100 years or more… a cheaply constructed plasterboard and spackle McMansion needs constant repairs and is a liability after 20 years.
While it may seem expensive, it’s far cheaper over the expected lifespan.
Most people don’t go to an architect and commission custom homes anymore. They go to a developer and choose from the available plans or buy what’s already available.
However, during the Gilded Age most ordinary people lived in houses without proper plumbing and electricity. You are showing the homes of the upper-middle class and rich. They could afford to build those homes because the builders got paid peanuts in comparison to today. Also, professional middle-class households had servants in those days. The wives stayed at home and the husband made the money. The wives ran the household and staff. Nowadays most households have to hold down two jobs to get by and there is no money for servants or 20 room mansions with bespoke architectural features. The way real estate prices are going most people will again be homeless or living in tenements in the not so distant future.
However, that is not to say that these old homes aren't beautiful and, perhaps, we should bring some of that styling back. People do respond very favorably to traditional architecture and what most modern architects consider beautiful doesn't necessarily resonate with most people.
1:35 affordability?
Yes. Houses are so bland and uniform these days due to massive cost savings. If you were to build a Victorian style home today with those materials would be millions and millions of dollars for a similar sized house.
@ for sure. Especially with the current labor and skill situation. That amount of detail would be insane. Just saying the current dollar amount for anything is just not what it’s worth. Grandfather was an employee making below the national median for the time. He chopped the wood and got most of the raw mats himself. His house is a Queen Ann styled American home and he built it via a plan he got second hand from a friend.