The Vic­tor­ian Bath The First Spa Bathroom

The Vic­tor­ians invented the modern bath with running water, porcelain fixtures, and a flushing toilet. And, to celebrate their inventiveness, decorated the room with as much fuss and detail as they could. Vic­tor­ian bathrooms, especially in England and the Northeast United States were elaborate, fanciful rooms.

However, while it is easy to view the bathroom as yet another example of Vic­tor­ian excess, it is also an over-simp­li­fi­ca­tion.

Some were indeed opulently appointed, particularly in the homes of the well-to-do, where the bathroom was often as much as showplace as the main parlor.

But, the focus of most Vic­tor­ian-era bathrooms was not decoration. It was comfort.

They were, in many ways the most comfortable baths ever designed, intended not just for bathing but also for luxuriating and relaxing. The large rolled-edge bathtub almost demanded a leisurely soak with lavender oil and a good book.

The emphasis on comfort translates well to today's Vic­tor­ian home — and even to homes that are not the least Vic­tor­ian.

Sleek, sanitized functionality may have held sway in American bathrooms for the past 100 years, but homeowners seem to be returning to the cozy bathrooms of the past as a place to relax, refresh, renew, and shed the cares of a busy and stressful day.

Fixture and accessory companies have recognized the trend and are offering more vintage looks than ever before, all with modern functionality.

Even companies such as Axor and Duravit, which make fixtures by top European contemporary designers, are bowing to the period trend with new lines, inspired by the 19th century Vic­tor­ian and Belle Epoque traditions.

So, the options for outfitting your Vic­tor­ian bath have never been greater.

The Vic­tor­ian Bathtub

The defining characteristic of a Vic­tor­ian bath is a large bathtub, usually a clawfoot or ped­es­tal tub. The tub, connected to running water, was an innovation that sparked a change in the hygiene habits of Americans.

Prior to the Vic­tor­ian Age, a bath once or twice a year was thought to be adequate. More frequent bathing was considered somehow unmanly and even hazardous to health.

The Vic­tor­ians changed that by focusing on hygiene as a social priority during the last half of the Era.

A whole raft of organizations and societies trumpeted the benefits of frequent bathing — with soap, mind you — and by the turn of the 20th century, weekly bathing was the rule, at least in Vic­tor­ian cities, and the Saturday night bath a family ritual.

If you are lucky, your Vic­tor­ian bathroom already has a lovely old clawfoot or pedestal tub, so all you need to do is get it cleaned up and polished.

Most of these tubs have a thick coat of porcelain enamel, so thick that it can be buffed out several times. So, if your tub is not actually rusting away (and sometimes even if it is), it can be restored to nearly new condition.

If your tub is too far gone for a clean and polish, it needs to be refinished.

Typical refinishing involves applying an acrylic urethane resin over the original porcelain glazing after any chips or gouges are filled and sanded smooth.

At a cost of about $350, it is an inexpensive way of getting more use out of a historically accurate tub. The downside, however, is that the coating lasts just 5-10 years, then it has to be done again.

Replacing the original glazing with new glazing is a more involved proposition. It cannot be done on site. The tub will have to be shipped to the finishing shop.

Companies like Cus­tom Cer­a­mic Coat­ings of Lenz­burg, Il­lin­ois, will re-por­ce­lain tubs in a furnace, the same way the tubs got their original finish.

The old finish is sandblasted away, then a new enamel coating is baked on at 1,475 degrees Fahr­en­heit.

The cost to treat a tub is $800 to $1,400, not including shipping and the wait-list is six months or longer.

The upside is that the new glazed coating is just as tough as the original and will last decades or even centuries with proper care.

If you don't have a tub, or it's just too cruddy to save even with refinishing, there are plenty of local and national sources of new and refurbished tubs.

New tubs have some nice features, including compatibility with modern plumbing fixtures. Old tubs have something new tubs will never have, however, the ethos of age and history. Given a choice, we usually opt for a refurbished old tub over a new tub.

Unfortunately, if you do have an original clawfoot tub, you probably also have the original plumbing.

Plan on replacing most of this. It may include pipes made of lead (which you absolutely want to get rid of) or more probably in this part of the country, galvanized steel.

In either case, the pipes are well beyond their useful life and need to go.

The faucets or "fillers" that work with clawfoot tubs are special. The most compatible with modern bathing are the "telephone" style arrangements with separate hand shower.

But some old tubs do not fit modern fillers, and the choice may be to find an old valve.

These were designed to work with old tubs that did not have holes in the right places for an overflow and filler, so all of these functions were moved out of the tub and into this elaborate device that handled filling, draining, and overflow protection.

Original standing wastes are hard to find and they usually need to be refinished and sometimes re-machined.

They are worth the effort, however. Modern replacements are available from such companies as Strom Living, our go-to source for reproduction Vic­tor­ian plumbing.

If at all possible, the tub should be near the center of the room, away from the walls. Putting a clawfoot or ped­es­tal tub next to a wall makes cleaning behind the tub a major chore.

If your room is too small to permit a central location for the tub, having a large tub next to the wall (but no closer than 6 inches) may be better than not having a large tub, but figure on a periodic hands-and-knees cleanup.

Another choice could be one of the smaller clawfoot tubs available, particularly the which provides nearly as much comfort in a smaller footprint.

The Victorian Shower

If you want a shower in your Vic­tor­ian bathroom, you may have to get a little creative. The Vic­tor­ians rarely had showers as we know them today.

If there was a shower it was usually a showerhead suspended over the tub with a curtain on a ring hanging from the ceiling. Shower rings are still available, and a shower over the tub is certainly an option.

It's not very convenient, however, for several reasons:

• It's small — generally no wider than the tub itself.

• The curtain is both clumsy to use and awkward to store out of the way when not in use.

• It's hard to keep the curtain clean and it seems to be a preferred place for mold and mildew to take root.

The best solution from the point of view of true authenticity would be a ribcasge shower. Unfortunately, however, these are no long made and have not been for a long, long time.

Which leaves simply incorporating a modern shower while making it look as Vic­tor­ian as possible with appropriate tiles and tile patterns.

There are a couple of caveats. First, the plumbing should look Vic­tor­ian, with exposed chromed or nickel-plated piping (where permitted) and an overhead rain showerhead. Second, the tile used for the shower should blend into the rest of the room so the shower is not intrusive. We cannot hide the shower but it should not be conspicuous. Lastly, use as much glass as possible so the shower does not reduce the visual size of the room.

For a handsome example of a modern shower in a Vic­tor­ian style, see the photo of the shower designed by architect Andre Rothblatt. The generous use of glass makes it almost disappear. But, what you can see looks authentic, although it really is not.

Heating Water

The main inconvenience in early Vic­tor­ian baths was the need to heat water on the stove, then carry it to the bathtub for comfortable bathing.

The Vic­tor­ian house after 1870 usually included running water but not hot running water.

Various inventors tried to fill the gap, leading to all sorts of interesting devices. One, commonly found in English Vic­tor­ian houses was the "copper" — essentially a small brick or stone fireplace in the bathroom into which a large copper (or more often, cast-iron) kettle was inserted. A wood or coal fire was built beneath the kettle to heat the water. The large, heavy, and hot kettle was then carried to wherever the water was needed.

Another solution involved a gas fire located under the bathtub to heat the water in the tub. This eliminated the nuisance and danger of carrying hot kettles to the tub but it was not a completely satisfactory solution for at least two reasons. There was no good way to vent the exhaust gases from the gas fire so the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning tended to spoil one's relaxing bath. And, as the fire was not regulated, it was entirely possible to blister one's bum.

Between the risk of asphyxiation and the threat of posterior toasting, it was probably difficult to completely relax with a good book on a languid Saturday morning.

In the late Vic­tor­ian period, cast-iron kitchen stoves could be fitted with a copper water tank in which water was heated through an exchanger.

A full day of cooking produced abundant hot water that could be drawn off at several points in the home through copper pipes, including the bathtub. But, to ensure a constant supply of hot water, the kitchen stove had to be kept burning most of the day, which in summer was a decided nuisance.

The Water Heater

The man who solved the problem was Nor­we­gi­an Ed­win Ruud who received a patent for an automatic storage water heater in 1898, a few years after he immigrated to Pitts­burg to work for George West­ing­house.

His invention was made possible by the nearly universal availability of natural gas in Vic­tor­ian cities after 1880. The device stored hot water in a tank, now usually located out of sight in the basement but his early ornate iron versions were often located right in the bathroom or kitchen for all to admire. The tank contained a thermostat that automatically turned on a gas fire to reheat the water as it cooled or was used.

He founded the Ruud Manufacturing Company to make the heaters. The company has been a division of Rheem Manufacturing Company since 1953.

His invention is the type of water heater in most American homes today (Europeans and Asians are more likely to have smaller, tankless, instant water heaters).

Much more convenient and safer than earlier efforts, the water heater was still not completely safe until the invention of the temperature and pressure relief valve patented by the Watts Regulator Company in the early 1900s.

Added to the water heater, it kept the heater from exploding from excessive pressure — an event that could level a house and kill or injure all inside, or at the very least, startle the cat.

By 1910 a new home in an urban area that did not include a water heater was a rarity, and plumbers were kept busy retrofitting existing homes with the wondrous new invention.

The Flushing Toilet

The first known flushing toilet was a gift to Elizabeth I of England in 1592 from Sir John Harrington, her godson, who constructed a water closet with a raised cistern and a small downpipe through which water ran to flush the waste. It did not work very well. The chief propblem was that did not block waste odors.

It was not until the 19th century and the invention of the sanitary si­phoning toilet that the flushing toilet came into widespread use. These worked so well that we use the same basic technology today in almost all toilets.

Contrary to what many Amer­icans believe (the Eng­lish know better), the modern si­phon toilet was not invented by a fellow named Crap­per.

Thomas J. Crap­per, a Lon­don plumber and astute businessman, founded a very successful bath fixture company, Tho­mas Crap­per & Co. Ltd., in 1861 that is still in business today.

The company manufactured toilets (it identified itself as The Ori­gin­al Pa­tent­ees and Man­u­fact­ur­ers of Bath­room Ap­pli­an­ces) but did not invent the device.

Early Toilets

The toilet was not, in fact, invented by any one person but resulted from an accumulation of incremental improvements made to the basic si­phon toilet over many years.

Alexander Cumming (1783-1844), a Scottish watchmaker, laid the foundation of the modern toilet in 1775 with his invention of the S-trap that created a si­phon effect that efficiently flushed solid waste and also sealed against sewer gases.

Three years later, Joseph Bramah (1748-1814) patented a flush valve to control the water released from the tank into the bowl, the forerunner of the modern flapper valve.

Thomas Twyford (1827-1849) and his son Thomas William Twyford replaced less sanitary wood and metal toilets with his sanitary porcelain toilets. They became the standard for excellence in si­phoning toilets and were an instant hit with the buying public, exported nearly all over the world.

(In 1889, Thoms William Twyford made a further contribution to the modern bathroom by introducing a lavatory basin with a built-in overflow.)

Twy­ford Bath­rooms is still in business in Staf­ford­shire as part of the Ger­man/Swiss Ge­ber­it Group.

Early Vic­tor­i­an toilets, especially in Bri­tain, were often masterpieces of the potter's art, made by the same companies that manufactured fine china ssuch as Delft, Wedg­wood, and Royal Doul­ton. These hand-painted and highly decorated devices were rare and expensive — proudly shown off to guests as evidences of wealth and status.

In the always more practical U.S., elaborate decoration was less common. American makers of fine china such as Lenox (founded as the Ceramic Art Company in 1889) arrived on the scene only after the heyday of the highly decorated toilet.

American toilets were made by sanitary ware companies like Kohler and American Standard that were much less interested in decoration than they were in function.

By 1910, toilets had become sufficiently commonplace that they were no longer conversation pieces, and plain white sanitary fixtures were in vogue.

The High-Tank Toilet

The signature feature of the Vic­tor­ian-era toilet is the placement of the tank several feet above the bowl. This is what is commonly thought of as the "high tank" toilet (The British say "elevated cistern" but, then, the Brits always seem to use more syllables than they actually need).

The high tank was more a matter of function than style.

Early si­phoning toilets were very inefficient. Waste was removed from the bowl and through the trap below the bowl by water flowing out holes in the rim around the top of the bowl.

For the water to have sufficient force to completely remove the waste, the tank had to be hung at least four feet above the bowl to generate a lot of momentum.

Typical tanks released 3-5 gallons of water per flush, more than twice what a modern toilet uses, and made enough noise to wake up the entire household — hence the rude nickname for the device: "thunder jug".

After the introduction of the more efficient si­phonic jet flush toilet in the 1890s, the high tank was no longer required as a matter of function but sanitaryware manufacturers continued to offer them as an option to low tanks.

The high tank had become a design tradition of Vic­tor­ian style and remained popular until the early 20th century when tastes changed to modern toilets that looked clean and functional.

The Ceramic Cistern

But, while toilets were made of very sanitary vitreous china from early on, the tanks were typically made of cast iron, zinc, tin, or wood with a tin or copper lining.

Vitreous china tanks were thought to be far too delicate to safely hold gallons of water high on the wall for long periods.

The first vitreous china "cistern" (as such tanks were called in those days) was produced by Eljer Plumbing­ware Co. in 1903.

Plumbers were skeptical of the durability of the product, so acceptance was slow.

To prove just how sturdy china really was, the company hosted a highly publicized demonstration. A ceramic tank was laid on its back on a steel rail, a plank was placed on top of it, and 27 men stood on the plank. That ended any reservations about the strength of china cisterns.

In 1908, Eljer replaced the original round or "pillbox" cistern with a rectangular model that was cast in a mold. The shape and casting processes are still used today virtually unchanged.

Eljer no longer exists as an operating company. It is now merely a slowly fading trademark of American Standard Brands which is owned by the Japanese conglomerate, LIXIL. See American Standard Faucets for more information.

Cisterns were rarely decorated and never as elaborately as bowls.

The old tin-lined wood tanks held up surprisingly well.

We recently restored a Vic­tor­ian bath in rural Nebraska that still had its original high wood tank. The wood was badly in need of rejuvenation, which we did, but the tin liner was in perfect shape.

We had the devil's own time finding fittings for the tank since plumbing fittings were not yet standardized in the late 1800s. Each manufacturer had its own sizes. But, we finally found the matching fittings that we cleaned up and re-finished.

The tank, with a new reproduction bowl from Kohler, is back in daily use (We presume. It's not the sort of question one actually asks.)

The Vic­tor­ian Sinks

The most appropriate sink for a Vic­tor­ian bathroom is a pedestal lavatory or console.

An enormous variety is available. Just about every major fixture manufacturer has a selection of lavatories that would work well in a Vic­tor­ian bath.

Pair it with a decorated wall mirror and a set of bright brass or nickel faucets, and you have a true Vic­tor­ian arrangement.

The problem with the pedestal and console sinks is that they provide no storage. And, we moderns have much more stuff to store than did our Vic­tor­ian forebears.

As a consequence, many designers opt for some form of vanity instead.

The Vic­tor­ians did have vanities, although they were more common in England than in the U.S. So, a vanity is not inappropriate. What is inappropriate is making it look built-in.

A Vic­tor­ian vanity was not a built-in cabinet but a standalone piece of furniture. Today these cabinets are often called commodes in the U.S. (commode means something different in the U.K. and Canada), and they are widely available from cabinet companies. Although actually attached to a wall, they are designed to look free-standing.

Vanities would have been fine wood sideboards or dry sinks adapted to use as a vanity by the addition of a bowl and plumbing. Dry sinks thst typically have a marble countertop are particularly well suited to conversion.

Marble, especially white marble, was the typical top but other stones and ceramic tiles were also used. Tile in small formats: 2" x 2" mosaics and smaller were favored.

The Vic­tor­ian Faucets

Almost any faucet manufacturer makes faucets that are elaborate enough for use in a Vic­tor­ian bathroom. Some faucet companies like

Selecting a finish for your Vic­tor­ian faucet is fairly easy. There are two authentic finishes, nickel and brass, and one nearly authentic finish, chrome.

Nickel Finishes

Chrome as a faucet finish did not come into widespread use in the U.S. until the 1930s after the formation of United Chromium Inc.

In the 19th century, most faucets were plated, if at all, with nickel, a much softer metal that wore easily, often exposing the native brass underneath after a few years of use.

Today's plated nickel is more durable than the nickel of the late 1890s but still a soft metal that is easily scratched.

A better choice is nickel, which is not nickel at all but some much more durable metal like zirconium or titanium applied to look like nickel.

Brass Finishes

Early brass fixtures were mostly raw brass that needed nearly daily polishing. Bare brass is an option if you don't mind the maintenance chore or have a full-time maid with nothing better to do.

The most commin protective coating on brass at the time was lacquer. Lacquered brass needed no polishing, but the lacquer does not last forever and needs to be stripped and renewed periodically. How often depends on how roughly the faucets were treated.

PVD brass that, like PVD nickel, is not actually brass but looks like brass and never needs polishing or renewing and is the better choice.

PVD finishes require no maintenance other than an occasional wipe and are nearly indestructible. Expect to pay a little more for PVD but the ease of maintenance is worth the small extra cost.

Chrome and Other Finishes

Chrome as a faucet finish was available during the late Vic­tor­ian period, but rarely used. The first U.S. patent for a plated chrome was granted in 1894 to Emile Placet and Joseph Bonnet of Paris, France.

The plating process was often hit or miss. The chemistry of the process was not well understood until Dr. George J. Sargent revealed the exact mixture of the plating solution required in a paper published in 1920.

Since chrome was available during the period, although not widely used, its use as a finish on Victorian bath faucets and other fittings is reasonably accurate. It may not satisfy the purists but if they are unhappy with your Victorian bathroom, just keep them out of it.

You can, of course, go with hand-rubbed oiled bronze or some other more modern finish, but it will likely seem out of place.

Vic­tor­ian Bath Flooring

Many contemporary flooring materials are inappropriate for Vic­tor­ian baths, but most natural and traditional materials work well.

For a complete account of flooring suitable for baths, see Flooring Options for Kitchens & Baths.

Wood Flooring

At the beginning of the Vic­tor­ian Era, wood floors were oiled or waxed, or just left as unfinished raw wood, and often turned gray with frequent washing.

Wood floors became more common once durable enamel paints were available. But, only very late in the Vic­tor­ian age did stained and varnished floors appear as paint companies began to offer tougher, longer-lasting varnishes.

Still, it was common to paint or varnish the floor once a year usually in conjunction with Spring or Fall cleaning — a major event in the days when the smell would permeate the house for days and varnish took up to a week to cure.

Modern finishes work very well, protecting wood floors from all sorts of mishaps. So, in reproduction kitchens wood works very well.

While not entirely accurate to the period, varnished wood does evoke a sense of timelessness appropriate to the era. Besides, who wants to oil a floor once or twice a year?

The preferred wood for a restored bathroom would be wide-plank pine or strip oak in this area, but ash and fir are also suitable.

Exotic imported wood species would not have been used with the possible exception of mahogany, a very expensive wood at the time more likely to have been used in fine furniture than on a bathroom floor.

Linoleum

Genuine linoleum was the original sheet flooring material and the "miracle floor" of its time.

Although some people still call all sheet floors "linoleum," the real thing is quite different from petroleum-based sheet vinyl floors that are its modern replacement.

It was patented by Englishman Frederick Walton in 1863.

Linoleum's main ingredient, linseed oil, is boiled, mixed with melted resins, and combined with powdered cork, wood flour, ground limestone, and other natural materials. Mineral pigments provide the color.

The mixture is formed into a durable sheet by applying heat and pressure.

In the 1870s and '80s, linoleum would have been the choice for an upscale "modern" Vic­tor­ian bath. It was relatively expensive at the time, however, so only the well-to-do could afford it.

Cork

Cork was one of the favored Vic­tor­ian flooring materials.

Flooring cork is very robust and has a long history as a resilient flooring going back to the first half of the 19th century. It reached its peak in 1927 when 2.9 million square feet of cork flooring were sold.

It is very durable. The cork floor in the U.S. Department of Commerce building, installed in 1930, is still in use today, as is the cork floor specified by Frank Lloyd Wright for his "Waterfall" house in Pennsylvania built in 1938.

Cork was not only the first but is, in many ways, the best resilient flooring for a bath.

Due to its unique cellular structure (about 2.4 million air-filled cells per cubic inch), cork is a very resilient floor. It has a little "give" and feels soft to the foot. Yet, it is extremely tough and durable.

Cork is naturally waterproof. Its cellular structure prevents it from absorbing water, which is why it was the original material for fishing bobbers and life vests.

But, for bathroom flooring, where standing and pooling water is likely, special "wet area" coatings are required to prevent the material from darkening over time.

Your painter or the staff at your local paint store can help you select the right finish. Go to a paint store frequented by professional painters. The clerks at the Big Box Stores often know less about paints and coatings than you do.

With proper care, cork floors last 100+ years and, if damaged, can be easily repaired, although most cork aficionados don't bother — a little scratch or gouge just adds to the patina.

Cork is also the "greenest" flooring available. It is completely sustainable and renewable.

Cork is the bark of the Cork Oak tree. The tree, grown predominately in Europe and North Africa, has a lifespan ranging from 150-200 years. It is harvested using methods that have remained virtually unchanged since the uses of cork were first discovered.

Once the tree has reached maturity (typically 25 years), the first harvest of cork bark is removed from the tree. The process is repeated at intervals of nine years (the minimum interval required by law), at no time affecting the health of the tree. During each harvest, no more than 50% of the bark is removed, allowing the tree to protect itself using its natural defenses.

To produce cork flooring, waste cork bark left over from making wine corks is ground into small granules. The granules are baked under pressure in molds at varying temperatures, producing shade variations in the finished tile product.

A dye may also be applied but most of the color you see in cork is just the result of baking.

The cork slab is then cut into slabs, smoothed, and finished with several applications of polyurethane or some other durable coating. The coating adds to the natural resistance of the cork to dirt and stains.

Damp mopping with a mild detergent is all that is required to maintain a cork floor in tip-top shape. Cork does not stain easily nor require cleaning with harsh chemicals.

Ceramic Tile & Stone

The archtype Vic­tor­ian bathroom floor was the 1-½" and 2" mosaic hexagonal ceramic tile floor in some shade of white.

If a bath was built after 1870, there is a good chance that ceramic tile was the floor covering used, especially in upscale houses.

Fortunately, the flooring is easy to reproduce. The very same tile has been manufactured the same way by many of the same tile companies for over 150 years and is widely available.

For the owner of a modern bath, however, glazed as opposed to unglazed tile is a better choice. The glaze is a glass &ndash not a very good glass but then it does not need to be. It has all the necessary properties: non-porous, waterproof, and stainproof. It never needs sealing. Cleaning requires only sweeping and a damp mop.

The tile the most durable of floor coverings. It will outlast you, your house, and most of civilization. Ceramic tile in Pompei lasted two millennia, survived one very serious volcano, and, by today's standards, was not even very good tile.

The former problem with veramic tile was its grout. The old cementitious grout stained easily and had to be cleaned and resealed regularly to keep its like-new look. The new urethane and epoxy grouts do not stain – ever. They are nearly as durable and easy to maintain as the tile itself.

Natural Stone

Stone flooring was also fairly common. Marble was particularly popular, especially in the Northeast, and frequently paired with marble vanity tops and even carved marble sinks.

Other calcareous stones, especially travertine and limestone, were common for bath floors of the period. These are fairly soft stones vulnerable to scratching, cracking, and other wear. These signs of wear and age, however, may make a stone floor more attractive.

Some silieous stones, including slate and sandstone, were also used as flooring. These stones have natural cleavage points making it fairly easy to produce slabs for flooring. These are generally harder stones that are less susceptible to ordinary wear and tear. Other stone in the family, such as granite, need to be sawn into slabs and were only rarely used as flooring.

Stones commonly used for countertops during the Era, such as soapstone, are too soft for use as a floor. Others, such as travertine, tend to show staining and discoloration fairly quickly.

The drawback of any natural stone compared to glazed tile is that the stone needs a surprising amount of routine maintenance including regular resealing. Manufacturers usually recommend annual sealing, but it may be necessary more often in high-traffic areas — as often as every three months in a busy kitchen.

In Vic­tor­ian times, stone floors would be oiled or waxed. Modern stone sealants would work better, last longer, and require reapplication less frequently.

Stone tiles in these materials are just as authentic as native stone slabs and often considerably less expensive. Some tile makers offer tiles that look like stone but have a ceramic glaze that never needs sealing and is virtually maintenance-free other than brooming and an occasional light mopping. If we have a choice, we use glazed tile where we can.

Wall Treatments

After 1870, the focus of almost all Vic­tor­ian homemakers was health and sanitation. The drive for cleanliness in the home extended into the bathroom and fostered a preference for easily cleaned, sanitary surfaces.

We have much the same concern today, and while we have the advantages of modern materials to help our quest for a germ-free environment, almost all of the Vic­tor­ian solutions work just as well with more traditional materials.

Ceramic Tile

By far, the favored material was glazed ceramic tile. Easily cleaned and very sanitary, it was regularly used on floors but also on walls as wainscots up to five feet from the floor oven up to the ceiling.

Today, tiles from floor to ceiling are often a feature of reproduction Vic­tor­ian baths. The most common color was some variation of white — from bright appliance white to some of the warmer eggshell whites and ivories.

Tile setting during the Vic­tor­i­an period was much more involved than it is today.

Tile was thick-set rather than thin-set.

Thin-setting has existed only since the 1950s with the invention of the thin-set adhesive mortar by Henry M. Rothberg. It appeared on the market as Laticrete.

Before Laticrete, going back to ancient times, tile was set on an up to 2" thick concrete slab that was hard enough to the touch but had not yet entirely cured.

A thin slurry of cement mortar was spread over the slab and the tile set into the slurry. The process was labor intensive, slow, and required great skill to produce a level surface.

Thin-setting in adhesive thin-set mortar made laying tile over plywood or cementitious backerboards possible, even over more modern backer membranes that can be installed on top of regular .

The thick slab was no longer necessary to ensure good tile adhesion and a level surface. It made ceramic tiling quicker, much more reliable, and much more affordable.

Wood Paneling

If tile was not used, wood wainscot, usually beadboard, would be the second choice.

When painted with the new ready-mixed paints then coming on the market (see more below), beadboard would have been nearly as sanitary as tile.

Wallpaper

Wallpaper was rarely used. The paper of the era did not stand up well to moist areas, developing mold and mildew problems as well as simply deteriorating after a few years.

To protect the paper, it was often waxed. The treatment was surprisingly effective but needed to be re-applied yearly and sometimes more often in humid climates like the Deep South.

Fortunately, today we have treatments that make almost any wallpaper moisture resistant and suitable for bathrooms and modern designers are not at all bashful about using the decorating potential of the beautiful wallpaper designed during the Victorian Era.

Paints

By far the most common wall treatment was paint. Painting was not, however, the nearly foolproof process it is today.

Before the American Civil War of 1860-1865, almost all paint was made from local materials by the painter, and the most popular painter in town was not necessarily the one who could do the best job of painting but the one who could mix the best paint.

Paint preparation was and still is, something of an art.

Traditional paint is composed of a hiding pigment, most often white lead or zinc oxide, that gives the paint its opacity, a tinting pigment for color, and a liquid binder. Paint "dries" when most of the liquid evaporates leaving behind the solid parts of the binder mixed with the pigments.

The usual binder was boiled linseed oil, first produced commercially from flax seeds in 1856. It replaced older binders such as egg white, casein, and gum arabic which were less durable.

The oil was usually mixed with turpentine to make it easier to spread and quicker to dry.

Mixing locally-made paint was involved and time-consuming. The dry pigments had to be ground in oil to form a paste then the paste was successively thinned, little by little, with more oil and turpentine and a lot of hand stirring until the paint was ready for use.

Paint formulas were printed in recipe books or "formularies". The earliest known American book of paint formulas is the 1812 guide by He­zeki­ah Rey­nolds entitled Dir­ec­tions for House and Ship Paint­ing ^[2]. For­mu­lar­ies gave instructions for the relative quantities of tinting pigments, binders, and solvents to be used but the process was still very inexact, often resulting in substantial color variations.

Paint was prepared right before it was applied, and if not done correctly would not dry or would not hold up for the two to five years that paint was expected to last.

Color pigments were usually vegetable or mineral materials found locally. Each locality usually produced only a few colors, mostly from local minerals, and mostly in earth tones.

Mineral pigments were favored because they lasted longer than organic plant pigments and were less likely to fade over time.

Suitable deposits of reddish-brown iron oxide were available in most places, hence the historic ubiquity of red and brown paints. Chromium, when it could be found, made a nice yellow, and zinc oxide produced various shades white.

It was not until 1867 that D. R. Averill of Ohio patented the first commercially prepared or "ready-mixed" paint. Shortly thereafter Harry Sherwin, Alanson Osborn, and Edward Williams formed Sherwin, Williams & Co. in Cleveland Ohio to market prepared paint. By 1875 the company was selling its paints throughout the Midwest.

Ready-mixed paints did not rely on whatever materials happened to be available locally for color but used commercial pigments that not only provided a greater range of color but also more consistency in color from batch to batch.

Prepared paint did not initially have a very long shelf life, so it could not be shipped very far or stored for very long.

That problem was solved by John Lucas & Co. of Phil­a­del­phia. Founded by English immigrants, John Lucas and Joseph Foster, it was the first paint manufacturer to ship ready-mix paints in sealed cans so the paint would not cure before it was sold. Its first catalog, published in 1852. listed 25 color categories.

The Lucas cans did not have a removable lid. They were opened with a can opener, and once opened, could not be re-sealed. Any unused paint had to be either thrown away or transferred to an air-tight container.

(The company was acquired by Sherwin-Williams in 1930 and closed permanently in 1978.)

Commercial paints were usually far more complex chemically than locally-made paints. More ingredients were added to the simple three-part mix of pigments, oil, and turpentine.

Fillers or extenders such as clay and chalk were included to make oil paints flow better and hide more completely.

Chemical agents that helped the paint remain flexible were introduced by the 1890s. Linseed oil cured relatively quickly, drying to the touch within one or two days. It continues to cure over the decades eventually becoming brittle. Additives increased its elasticity, reducing the peeling and flaking of brittle paint.

The amount of gloss in the cured paint was largely a function of the amount of linseed oil used in the formula. The more linseed oil, the glossier the result – up to a point.

For a very high gloss, a coat of [ure linseed oil might be applied over the paint followed by varnish to protect the oil.

By the 1890s hundreds of companies were making and selling paint. Most served local or regional markets.

The first truly national paint company was the Benjamin Moore Company, founded in 1883 in New York as Moore's Prepared Calsome Finish.. Its Mor­es­co paint, introduced in 1892, was a dry paint mix to which water was added to make a spreadable coating.

Sherwin-Williams countered with its resealable paint can and its Shade K prepared paint, introduced in 1880. Its pigments stayed suspended in the binder for an extended period, reducing the need for stirring. The company offered to refund both the cost of the paint and the painter if Shade K paint did not "work better, wear longer, or permanently look better than other paints." (The company no longer offers that warranty.)

Thus began the rivalry between the two companies that has lasted nearly a century and a half.

Most paints continued to use some variation of the linseed oil-turpentine (or later, mineral spirits) base right through the Vic­tor­ian era

By today's standards, it was not very good paint.

It was not fade-resistant or "colorfast" in the least. The sun often bleached walls in part of a room so they were a distinctly different color from unbleached walls in the rest of the room, and readily identifiable when hanging pictures were removed to show the "sha­dow" of unbleached paint.

Nor, for the most part, were the paints particularly water-resistant, hence the usual practice of a tile wainscot on the bottom half of bathroom walls.

Nonetheless, while not always simple enough for a novice to use, ready-mixed paints did make paint more reliable, and over time, less expensive.

The term "ready-mixed" did not mean that the paints were actually ready to use, it meant that all of the ingredients were in the can. They had to be blended before use by stirring, a process that often took an hour or more and was the principal responsibility of an apprentice painter.

Mixing was hard work. Pigments tended to collect as a nearly impenetrable brick of color on the bottom of the can and had to be broken up and evenly distributed evenly throughout the linseed oil binder.

The paint of the time was also very flammable, and many a house was burned down by paint-soaked rags that spontaneously burst into flame.

To help bathroom and kitchen paints better resist damage from water and grease, some painters applied a coat of wax to the finished wall.

The wax made the wall "washable" to a degree and helped the paint last longer by replacing the oils slowly being lost by the linseed binder as it continued to cure, reducing the need to re-paint.

Wax was often re-applied yearly during Spring cleaning.

Synthetic Paint Colors

Unlike the earlier Colonial period that could produce only a very few locally-made paint colors or the later Arts & Crafts period during which the paint palette was deliberately restricted by notions of "returning to nature", the Vic­tor­ian Era had, for the first time in history, an enormous and varied choice from a virtual rainbow of colors.

Decorators used every single one of them, and clamored for more, which makes selecting an appropriate paint color for your Vic­tor­ian bathroom fairly easy. Just about any color will work.

Major paint companies make choosing appropriate paints easier by publishing paint cards showing the colors that were available during the late Vic­tor­ian period.

An­i­line Pigments

The year 1856 was saw the beginning of the explosion of the chem­ical­ly-de­rived color pa­latte of today.

In that year Englishman Wil­liam Hen­ry Per­kin, a chemistry student, while trying to synthesize quinine for the treatment of malaria, accidentally discovered the first synthetic an­i­line pigment, a purple hue extracted from coal tar that he named mau­veine.

He patented it the next year and opened a dye works to mass-produce it.

By 1859, the color had been renamed mauve. It became instantly popular in 1862 when Queen Victoria appeared at an exhibition wearing a mauve silk gown.

Dozens of new synthetic pigments were already appearing in paints by 1874 and, within two decades most of the synthetic colors we use today had been discovered.

Color Schemes

Multiple colors in the same room became a common theme in interior decoration. Decorators of the period often specified a main color surrounded by many supporting colors, often in bands.

Deep, rich colors were thought to enhance the importance of a room. Texture was often added to a wall using stencils. Faux painting mimicked everything from elaborate woodwork to masonry and even fabrics.

Almost as important as the color is the sheen. Vic­tor­ian bathroom paints should not be glossy but should have a noticeable sheen. A flat or matte sheen is not accurate to the period.

Wood should always be somewhat shinier than the wall plaster. With modern paints, this is accomplished with a satin sheen on the walls, and semi-gloss on any woodwork.

Architecture of the Arts & Crafts Period

The Arts & Crafts period from the turn of the 20th century to the start of the Second World War I is unique in American architectural history.

It was the only period in which houses that ordinary people could afford were enriched with all manner of finely crafted detail.

Rich wood trim, art glass, and colorful tile mosaics had been used in houses for a long time but only kings, potentates, and robber barons could afford them. The rest of us had to do without — at least until the Arts & Crafts movement made rich detailing the standard in home-building… (Continues).

Footnotes:

Rev. 07/23/24