this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2024
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wait but genuine question why dont people make houses like they did in victorian times?
They use cheaper materials and pass they savings onto themselves!
in fairness, the materials were cheaper then compared to now only because they were practically raw materials.
if you look at 17th century European construction and compare domiciles constructed for nobles vs commoners the only difference other than scale, is the quality of the post processing.
example; walls in a manor were stone bricks and plasterwork. commoners used the stone laying around(free) and had no plaster. lords had slate roofs, commoners had thatched (free).
as time marched on, the consumer market grew throughout the 19th and 20th century where homes were developed with manufactured/engineered materials. the cost of materials dropped due to supply and demand. lowest home development peaked in the 1990s.
after 2008 and then 2020, building a new home is far out of reach of most due to costs of materials and land.
one could say our ancestors had cheaper homes, but our ancestors would think we're royalty if they saw the amenities we live with inside out homes today.
either way, we peaked in the 90s and will never be as prosperous in our lives again.
Totally agree on the cheaper materials. There are newly built "luxury" homes near me that bend so much in the wind the windows crack.
But Victorian homes also had weird layouts because they didn't live like us. I don't need a parlor and a sitting room and a living room. Today we prefer larger multi-functional spaces. Those luxury homes I mentioned before basically have one huge room at the back of the house with the kitchen in one corner, a small eating area, and a massive space for couches and a TV. As someone whose kitchen is totally cut off from the rest of the house I know I'd prefer that open floor plan.
Huh I prefer my kitchen being cut off from the rest of my house.
Because I don't have a full time cleaner to keep the dust off everything.
Expensive wood and fixtures. In a nice home there was lots of varnished wood, there were nice castings for hardware on cabinets and doors, lots of carved wood accents, and plenty of stone and tile. Varnished wood has to be high quality, sanded smooth, and takes a lot of wood to remove material for carving to make it look nice when varnished. Materials were heavier then, too. A 2x4 really was 2x4 and not “mill” like today, moldings, planks, decorations, trim…it was all heavier and wider. Back then you’d still need to be better off to have the nice stuff. I lived in a “normal” Victorian and I can assure you that “old world craftsmanship” was just as slapdash and unexciting as your normal home today. Hardly a straight wall or anything finer than a pine wood floor in the whole place. The old equivalent of “contractor grade” Home Cheapo finishing.
Today things can be plywood, MDF, poor-quality stitched together scraps to make trim and moldings. It’s just going to get painted, so it doesn’t matter. Way more plastic, way less metal, almost no ornamentation at all. Ply or OSB flooring with carpet or “engineered” flooring, which is often just plasticized and decal’d or veneered sawdust.
There was also no employer health care, no social security, no retirement funding or anything like that. Cost of living was cheaper. So employees and the entire production chain were cheaper. Good quality wood was far, far more abundant.
To sum up - materials and labor costs. Especially the materials. Good quality costs way more today, and then add contractor and labor costs on top of that.
related to another comment I made, the materials they used just don't exist.
the wood they used to build a house in 1900 were from trees that were at or over 100 years old much of that time was never around humans or pollution. this means the growth rings were tight and dense. very sturdy. in California they were cutting down the great Sequoia red woods to build homes. much of San Fransisco still has redwood framing to this day. those trees are multiple hundreds of years old.
compared to the white pine we used in framing today, the tree is anywhere from 5-7 years old and are bred to grow tall, and fast. this makes the growth rings loose and soft. sturdy enough.