Victorian Trim & Materials

Exterior Building Materials

• Wood, stone or brick are used for exterior building materials. The brick is usually red or reddish-orange, with mortar tinted to a similar color. Stone as an exterior material is seen on Second Empire- and Romanesque-style homes, though not exclusively. Wood is also used as an exterior material, particularly for the Queen Anne. A wood exterior allows for the application of paint, resulting in the multi-color palette characteristic of Victorian homes.

Window Trim

• The exterior building material has some influence on the trim applied to the home, and this is evident on window trimmings. Victorian houses with stone or brick exteriors may have brick trim along the arch of the window. The brick is lighter in color and installed vertically. The keystone at the peak of the arch is a stony gray or off-white to add further contrast in color. For wood exteriors, windows are trimmed in wood, sometimes painted white or in a contrasting color to the body of the house. Shutters are sometimes installed as well, though they may be for decorative purposes rather than for function in modern applications.

Gingerbread Trim

• Gingerbread is the trimming found along gables, rooflines and front porches. Influenced by stone tracery, a process in which exterior stone is etched with patterns; gingerbread is usually made of wood. Patterns include circles, diamonds and sunbursts, along with other graphic designs. Gingerbread was possible for use on housing for the middle class because the intricate carving was done by machine rather than by hand, and so massive amounts of the detailed trims could be produced relatively inexpensively.

Brackets and Balusters

• The array of patterns used in gingerbread, including stars, circles, diamonds and combinations thereof, is also applied to practical elements, such as brackets, cornices and vent coverings. Because the front porch is an important part of the Victorian home, special attention is paid to details, and gingerbread adorns the length of the porch's roofline. To add to the visual density of this outdoor space, the porch railing is also highly decorative. The top railing is weighty, supported by ornately carved spindles, also called balusters, which sometimes resemble Greek and Roman columns. Like the gingerbread, the porch railing, called a balustrade in its entirety, is also made from wood and carved by machine.