The worst offense of minimalism against taste I have ever seen was people painting the entire exterior of a lovely Victorian house white
It had formerly been a medium-saturated lavender with cream trim
Enjoy powerwashing your siding five times a week for the rest of ever, you Instagram shills
Victorian houses were actually originally painted all white, since the paint was easy to mass produce at the time and the type of white they used didn’t fade from the sun. Any other colors were very expensive and had to be consistently maintained. It’s really only once synthetic pigments became commonplace did Victorians gain their bright colors, so an all-white Victorian could be labeled ‘minimalist’ now but such a paint job is actually more historically accurate and attune with what the architects had in mind when designing the house. Its interesting to note that while Victorians were all-white on the outside their interiors were richly patterned and colored with wallpapers and fabrics, essentially the reverse of what’s common now where interiors are white and blank while exteriors are more colorful and exuberant.
Depending on the decade. These are later Victorians from the 1880s-90s, of the “painted lady” variety with all the colors and gingerbread.
Except colorful Victorian houses date to before then, from the 1870s at least if not earlier. I don’t know much about paint prices, but I do know about houses repainted with the original colors determined via paint stratigraphy. Furthermore, even all-white Victorians weren’t ALL white; roofing tiles, shutters, doors, etc. would often have been other colors and added some dimension.
Painting a house entirely 100% unmitigated white is a modern trend, and a stupid one in my opinion.
I was probably too broad in saying all Victorians were painted white, especially seeing as the style is so wide-ranging, and that statement is mostly applicable only to Italianate and Stick houses anyway. Because decades do matter, and the 1840s to 1860s were when those styles were most popular, and when they were mostly white, but I guess I didn’t want to go into that level of specificity even though I probably should’ve!
It’s more accurate to say that Victorians were all beige or pale, since it was only around the turn of the 20th century (~1885) did the more vibrant colors that we love come into fashion and were possible to manufacture/maintain on a larger scale. But when you said Victorian my mind went to Italiante instead of Queen Anne, so I’m sorry for the confusion. I also wasn’t trying to sound like I was schooling you or something, I just like talking about architecture and I thought my piece of information would be interesting, especially since I love combatting minimalism hate.
Also, I’m not an idiot who thinks all-white means every single aspect of an exterior. So while your tag is cute, I do know what my words mean, just like you do, but I do apologize for being so broad with a subject that doesn’t deserve that type of treatment.
