Create a Victorian Bedroom

A typical Victorian bedroom, which you can see at the former home of artist Linley Sambourne, in London. This was his son Roy’s room. The house has been preserved as a museum and is well worth a visit if you’re interested in the period (Linley Sambourne House)

What would a Victorian girl’s room have looked like? Probably quite bare to us, for she wouldn’t have had nearly so many clothes and possessions as we do today. If she lived in a large house, books and toys would have been kept in the schoolroom or nursery. Dresses and coats would have been hung from pegs on the wall – perhaps behind a curtain – or kept folded in a wardrobe or chest of drawers, as clothes hangers were not used until the 1900s (when they were known as ‘shoulders’). As for other pieces of furniture: there might have been a washstand with a china jug and basin which a servant would fill with hot water for washing, a towel rack and perhaps a cupboard to hide the chamber pot, a rug on the linoloeum or bare floorboards, bellows and a coal scuttle beside the fireplace.

This is how Viola Bankes describes her day beginning at Kingston Lacy, back in the early 1900s:

Daphne and I would wake up together in the chilly morning in the unheated room and peer through the white hoop rails at the end of our beds to see Alice blacking the grate of the huge stone fireplace, laying the fire with paper, sticks, coals and logs, lighting it and fanning it with the brass and leather bellows.             

(From A Kingston Lacy Childhood, Reminiscences of Viola Bankes collected by Pamela Watkin, Dovecote Press Paperbacks)

Open fires would have made the room sooty, which is partly why the Victorians were so keen on covering their furniture with removable covers that could be washed. Today we think of layers of fabric and lace, elaborately draped or caught up in swags, as typical of this period.

If you’d like to give your bedroom a Victorian makeover, here are some easy ideas to try:

• throw at least one lacy shawl over your bedside table
  
  
• group ferns and palms together in old-fashioned plant pots, perhaps covered in découpage (see below)
  
  
• line glass jars of shells along the windowsill (the Victorians were very keen on shellwork)
  
  
• cover bolster cushions in a length of lace or muslin, tied at each end with ribbon
  
  
• drape muslin or lace over a white-painted curtain pole
  
  
• line wicker baskets with lace handkerchiefs and put them on open shelves to store your bits and bobs

The Day Nursery was a large, cheerful room with an attractive wallpaper of blue ribbons entwined with small bunches of horizontally arranged roses …The only sign that other children had been brought up there was a three-piece screen which my own father, when a little boy, had covered in colourful Victorian scraps.

Warning – découpage is seriously addictive! Once you’ve got the bug, it’s difficult to stop. All sorts of things can be decorated, from plant pots, picture frames and jewellery boxes to tables and chairs. Stores like Ikea sell plain wooden boxes and frames, and you can cut scraps to decorate them out of magazines or wrapping paper. Some art shops have books of scraps, and you may be able to print designs from the Internet. (The fun ‘Virtual Victorians’ site, put together by http://tofino.ex.ac.uk/virvic/welcome has a great découpage section under the eToys heading.) Besides old-fashioned scraps, you can also create lovely presents by colour copying photographs of your friends and making collages with these pictures over boxes or books.

The idea is to create as smooth a surface as possible by painting several coats of varnish over the paper scraps so they don’t look ‘stuck on’. If the piece you’re decorating is bare wood, it’s a good idea to give it a couple of coats of matt paint first (not shiny gloss). Test pots of paint are ideal for this as you won’t need very much. If the object is already painted, you’ll need to rub some fine sandpaper or steel wool over the surface to roughen it so the glue can take hold. Have all your scraps cut out first (use a small pair of scissors and try to be as neat as you can), so that you can arrange them before fixing them permanently in place. When you’re happy with your design, start sticking the scraps down with PVA glue, pressing out any air bubbles and keeping a damp cloth handy to wipe away smears.

Once the glue is dry, spray or paint over several coats of clear paper varnish.

If you become a découpage expert and want to add a truly Victorian touch to your bedroom, a company called Scumble Goosie has unfinished three-panel screens that you can cover with scraps to create a wonderful family heirloom (they are quite expensive): www.scumble-goosie.co.uk

Jewellery frame 

You might not have diamonds in the family, but you can make a wonderful display for your earrings, bracelets and necklaces out of a simple frame and a piece of hardboard. Either use an old gilt frame if you happen to find one in a junk shop or the attic, or look out for an unfinished wood frame that you can paint or decorate with découpage. If the existing backing sheet is fairly strong, you may be able to use that, otherwise you’ll need to have a piece of hardboard cut to fit the frame (large DIY stores usually have a cutting service and will do this for you if you buy the hardboard from them). Paint the hardboard a pretty colour – you could even add some découpage too. (Enough découpage already!) Then arrange your jewellery over the hardboard until you have a design you like. You might want to make a smaller frame for earrings alone, or hang earrings inside your necklaces and bracelets. Make a small pencil mark to show the position of each piece, then put a chopping board behind the hardboard to protect your work surface in case you go through to the other side by mistake. Hammer in brass-headed picture nails, slanting slightly upwards, to hang your jewellery from. (Mind your fingers and thumbs.) Now put a stronger hook for your frame on the wall, stand back and admire your collection!