The Victorian House Book: A Practical Guide to Home Repair and Decoration - Hardcover

Robin Guild; Vernon Gibberd; Simon Rigge

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1873329407 ISBN 13: 9781873329405

Publisher: Sheldrake Press, 2007

Synopsis

A comprehensive guide to restoring Victorian houses, which explains the historical background and advises on how to create a comfortable modern home while respecting the period architectural detail.

About this title

About the Author

Robin Guild acquired an international reputation as a designer of interiors ranging from small studio apartments and country houses to the cabins of motor yachts and private jets. Co-founder of Designers Guild, he worked for many well-known clients including the Rolling Stones, Joan Collins, Trevor Nunn and the royal family of Saudi Arabia. He designed the interiors of Ralph Lauren's London clothes store, as well as Brown's and the Empress Garden restaurants. His book The Finishing Touch has been translated into four languages. He died on 27th August 2006. Vernon Gibberd, RIBA, has run a private architectural practice in London since 1970; before that, he spent two years working as an architect in New York. The practice is very mixed, combining new work with restoration. He has designed aviaries and a maze and grotto for Leeds Castle in Kent, worked for the National Trust and rehabilitated a wing at Arundel Castle. Other projects include a folly garden in Scotland and grottoes in Hampshire and Worcestershire. Vernon Gibberd's publications include booklets written and illustrated for the National Trust, a book on kitchen design and a history source book of architecture from Egyptian times to the present day. Simon Rigge has been a writer and editor since leaving Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He learned his trade under Captain Sir Basil Liddell Hart and Barrie Pitt on Purnell's History of the Second World War, then under A. J. P. Taylor and John Roberts on The History of the 20th Century, where he wrote articles on everything from the Italian Campaign of 1943-45 to Electricity in Everyday Life. On the picture side he worked with Germano Facetti and John Deakin, narrowly escaping being painted by Francis Bacon. After a short spell on the Observer Colour Magazine, he moved to Time-Life Books where he wrote and edited for The British Empire, a partwork history co-published with the BBC, The World's Wild Places and The Great Cities series. In 1979 he founded Sheldrake Press, where he has worked with many eminent authors.

From the Back Cover

How do you adapt a 19th-century house to suit modern living standards? This is a question the interior designer, Robin Guild, has considered many times. His answer is, work with the architecture you have, not against it. In this comprehensive workbook he takes you through every room in the house, explains the purpose of the original fixtures and fittings and suggests how you can use them to enhance your own decorative schemes. Drawing on his professional experience, he helps you decide what jobs to do and which order to do them in.

Contains 57 topics on exterior and interior architectural detail, alterations, conversions and decoration of individual rooms;

500 colour photographs of design ideas ranging from traditional to present-day;

1,500 line drawings of fixtures and fittings, researched from original builder's merchants' catalogues;

specially commissioned artwork of standard house types and decorative styles from late Regency to Arts and Crafts;

advice on planning ahead and how to create an interior design plan;

content approved by an advisory panel of architects and historians and a directory of specialist manufacturers and suppliers.

From the Inside Flap

Victorian houses have a special magic. They are not just bricks and mortar but places where four or five generations have lived and left their mark. Every one - be it suburban terrace or detached mansion - has its secrets to capture the imagination. Who lived here? What were the rooms used for, how were they decorated, how have they been altered, and why?
The Victorian House Book provides owners and admirers of Victorian houses with the most comprehensive source book and guide to home repair and decoration available today. It recreates the social history; describes the building methods; explains the original function of the fixtures and fittings; gives authentic references for fireplaces, windows, doors, tiles, ironwork and plaster mouldings; and charts the changing tastes in decoration and furnishings.
Robin Guild, one of Britain's most talented and successful interior designers, explains why everything is the way it is in your Victorian house, and shows how a sympathetic adaptation to modern living standards can be combined with respect for the original features.
Virtually every aspect of the Victorian house is illustrated in the 500 colour photographs, and the 1,500 line drawings form a spectacular visual catalogue of Victorian features.
The book concludes with a practical section on restoration works and a list of more than 150 selected manufacturers and suppliers, fully revised and brought up to date for this, the fourth edition, complete with telephone and fax numbers, e-mail and web-site addresses.

Edition details

• Publisher: Sheldrake Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1873329407
• ISBN 13: 9781873329405
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 4
• Number of pages: 320