This is tangential, but I've never been sure whether the word "Victorian" was in common use in purely US contexts. I guess it is - and I can stop studiously avoiding it.
It's in use, and in general application it often covers everything between "Colonial" and "ranch."
I think that's unkind. Most people I know who talk about Victorian houses use it as a temporal marker, and are wrong only if it's really Edwardian instead.
Okay, I admit that was a crude and sweeping generalization, but I so often hear it used to mean "big old house with lots of rooms and maybe a porch" for houses built as late as the 1920's! Of course it can be hard to tell if the trim's stripped and the place is stucco-coated or done over with asbestos.
but I so often hear it used to mean "big old house with lots of rooms and maybe a porch" for houses built as late as the 1920's!
We're not sure there was ever a porch on the front of ours. We're pretty sure the sunroom along the side was built over from a deck at some point, but again we're not convinced that was original. The internal structure of all the rooms has been pretty heavily rearranged.
That said, someone came tonight and looked at the place and said all sorts of effusively complimentary things, so yay for that.
This is tangential, but I've never been sure whether the word "Victorian" was in common use in purely US contexts.
I don't know if it's in identical common use when it comes to discussing styles, but in terms of when a house was actually built, it is frequently and correctly used to describe a large quantity of architecture in Somerville.
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I think that's unkind. Most people I know who talk about Victorian houses use it as a temporal marker, and are wrong only if it's really Edwardian instead.
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We're not sure there was ever a porch on the front of ours. We're pretty sure the sunroom along the side was built over from a deck at some point, but again we're not convinced that was original. The internal structure of all the rooms has been pretty heavily rearranged.
That said, someone came tonight and looked at the place and said all sorts of effusively complimentary things, so yay for that.
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I don't know if it's in identical common use when it comes to discussing styles, but in terms of when a house was actually built, it is frequently and correctly used to describe a large quantity of architecture in Somerville.