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

The 4th edition contains additional text and a revised Technical Advice section, including an extended list of suppliers offering goods and services to the Victorian home owner. It has a new jacket highlighting its usefulness as a practical guide.No book gets to its 4th edition unless it is found to be useful.

The 500 colour photographs and sumptuous page layouts are designed to attract the impulse buyer as well as providing inspiration and decorating ideas. Once the readers have the book in their hands, however, they quickly discover that it is far more than a collection of magnificent pictures. In 100,000 words, Robin Guild sketches in the historical background to every aspect of architectural detail and decoration in a Victorian house and gives advice drawn from his own experience on how to create a look that matches 19th-century structure and proportions with 21st-century standards of comfort.

The 1,500 line drawings, researched from original builder's merchants' catalogues, provide an unrivalled source of references for fixtures and fittings both inside and out.The emphasis is on sympathetic improvement. Work with the architecture you have, not against it. Windows, doors, roof-lights, fireplaces - all instil character and possess the power to embellish and enhance if treated in the right way.  Photography by James Mortimer, Ken Kirkwood and Derry Moore.