Straw Dolls

The Various Characteristics of Three Major Doll House Styles

The Victorian, Tudor and Georgian Doll Houses are the most common collectible items worldwide. Depending on what appeals to the collector, these are distinctly designed and each has its own specific signature styles in terms of flooring, door and window carvings and pillar designs, among others. Here's a background of those doll house designs.

 

The Victorian

 

The Victorian doll house originated from the actual designs of houses during the Victorian Period. Victorian property is typified by small, asymmetrical sized rooms with elevated ceilings and always contains a terrace or balcony. They also have huge rangy inlet windows at the front.

 

The Victorian period is the time when Queen Victoria was the monarch of the Great Britain. This meant the conclusion of all houses in the local area being constructed using the same structure materials. Houses made of local rocks, wood and straw could now, for instance, be made of bricks from Bedfordshire and slate from North Wales.

 

The new mass produced bricks were more affordable and necessitates less groundwork and safeguarding, so for the first time all over the British Isles, new mansions, churches, huts, schools and factories were made from the same material regardless of geographical location.

 

Even with the accessibility and affordability of these new goods, numerous people under the working population in the countryside were still living in small cottages and sheds even up to the 20th century. In towns and cities, lower class members of the society lived in end-to-end houses called terraced houses.

 

Rich Victorians preferred villas. The rising middle classes of the Victorian England resided in bigger terraces with back and front gardens and a quarter for the maids in the garret or attic.

 

Victorian houses were built in a time when cars were still uncommon. Cars were invented just at the end of the Victorian era. This means that Victorian houses were built without garages as there was no reason to have a place to store a car.

 

Victorian houses have smokestacks or chimneys because they usually had a fireplace in each room. The fire was the only way to maintain warmth inside the house so the residents could feel comfortable during winter. Today, houses are constructed devoid of functional chimneys because of new technology like keeping the room warm through electronic central heating.

 

Typical Characteristics of Victorian doll houses

• Metal Railings
• Roofs made of slate.
• Sticking out bay windows
• Flemish brick bonding
• Patterns in the brickwork made from colored bricks
• Stained glass in doorways and windows.
• No garage
• Sash windows (they open by sliding the window up)

During the Victorian era, many people transferred into the new industrial zones to work in the machine shops and factories and rows of back-to-back houses with verandas were built to house them. The houses were joined together, similar to duplex to save space. Each strip was popularly called a terrace.

Terraced houses were very tiny with two rooms both upstairs and downstairs. There were usually no gardens, only a small back patio where the outside toilet was located.

 

The Tudor

 

The Tudor period is the era when the Tudor family came into power. It was around the 15th and 16th centuries. Henry VIII is the most famed Tudor monarch. There are numerous Tudor houses in England today. Some of these houses date back to over 500 years ago.

 

Most regular houses during the Tudor period were built half timbered. Meaning, they are built with wooden enclosures or skeletons and the spaces in between were packed with wet clay called wattle and small daub, as well as, tiny sticks.

 

Tudor houses are known for having a 'black-and-white' effect. Many photographers enjoy photographing Tudor houses because of their exclusive elegance and mystery when the photos are printed in black and white.

 

Houses were typically built of wood and wattle and daub. Wattle is the tangled sticks that are put in a wall between posts. Daub is a muddled clay, sand and manure that are smeared into and over the wattle to construct the wall.

 

The Georgian

 

There are many Georgian houses in the United States particularly in New Orleans. The Georgian period is the era when the royalties on the throne of England had the name George. A classic Georgian house of the 18th century was stylish and "ceremonial" in style. During the Georgian times, there was a weighty tax on windows, as England was at war and needed the money for extra funding. The number of windows in a house was an indication of wealth. Lower class people usually had only one small window for every floor. Some people even covered their existing windows with bricks to avoid the tax, even to the point of only having the door as the only hole in the house.

 

Characteristics of Georgian houses

• Square proportioned shape.
• A paneled front door in the center
• Posts or commonly pillars in the front of the house.
• Tiled hipped roofs that slope upward from all the sides of the structure
• The roof was usually concealed behind a stockade, or short wall built around the edge of the roof.
• Chimneys that come in pairs
• Sliding windows
• The windows nearer the roof are smaller than the rest.

About the Author

Joost Smeets has been a dollhouse enthusiast for
over 10 years.  His newest book, "Dollhouse Making Made Easy," teaches other
Dollhouse enthusiasts absolutely everything they need to know
about creating the perfect dollhouse.
If you do not own a copy yet, order your copy now at
http://www.thedollhousecenter.com/dollhousemadeeasy.html

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