The Victorian House Book

Overview

No book gets to its 4th edition unless it is found to be useful. With its 2,000 illustrations, 320 pages, and 100,000 words, The Victorian House Book is the biggest and most comprehensive renovation manual available, offering you more inspirational decorating ideas and practical guidance than any other book on the subject. "Head and shoulders above the rest" is how the RIBA book buyer described it. Written by Robin Guild, one of Britain's most successful interior designers, the book explains how to modernize your house while preserving the original architectural features. The emphasis is on sympathetic improvement: work with the architecture you have, not against it. Windows, doors, roof-lights, fireplaces—all instill character and possess the power to embellish and enhance if treated in the right way. The book takes you through every room, describing all the fixtures and fittings, and helps you decide which jobs to do and in what order to do them. The detailed practical guidance is broken down into 57 topics covering all aspects of alteration, conversion, and decoration. A comprehensive directory lists the names and addresses of manufacturers and suppliers across the country.

Author Biography

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 in 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.