The victorian period was one of the first that we begin to see true segregation within the home as opposed to just outside of it. It was with the birth of the victorian home and its architecture that we begin to see houses very similar to our modern homes. Thes buildings included bedrooms, a nursery, the kitchen, the scullery, the drawing room, the dining room, the bathroom, and a lavatory.
While up until the end of the regency period the bedroom acted as a quasi-sitting room this was to rapidly come to a close with the begining of the public face of the victorians wishing a stature of high moral standards. Many homemaking magazines of the time could be quoted in stating that "The use of the bedroom for anything other than sleeping was unwholesome, immoral, and contrary to the well-understood principle that every important function of life required a separate room."
That being said, the recieving of guests in one's sleeping quarters was rapidly disappearing...in theory. The truth of the matter was in fact that a great deal of time was still spent in these rooms. Not only was it used for sleeping but in fact this was more often than not the room you would be born in and possibly die in later in life. It also became a hub of "immoral" festivities. These came in all manner of flavors including racuous use of ones servants in ways other than thier hired duties, traveling dandies enjoying a little side excursion with the Lady or Lord of the house, etc.
The nursery came into play much later in the victorian sensibilites but by the time of the edwardian period had been so well recieved that few were even aware that it had not always existed. The nursery was designed as a room specificly for the children, where they were cared for by a nursemaid and later a governess. It was a place for them away from the hustle and bustle of the daily runnings of the home where they might be out of the way of adult matters. Children were to be trained and disciplined, both to promote thier own well-being and to promote the well-being of the family unit. This applied to all children of the Lady and Lord of the House till they were wed and took leave of the home. The bending over the knee and full spanking or worse was quite common even for adult children, and servents.
While in modern times we view our kitches for both thier storage of food and the ability to cook and even eat in it, this view was not held by our victorian breathern. In fact the kitchen in a victorian home was specificly for cooking. the storage of food being relegated to the Larder or Pantry just off the kitchen if not connected directly to it, dish washing being placed in the scullery which was at times also used for the sleeping quarters of the scullery maid. The kitchen for the very wealthy was often the largest hub of activity amongst serventry as it was before, is now, and will always be the heart and soul of a home it would have enjoyed its fair share of heartache, joy, gossip, and cursing. Secerets were told and kept there many of which were most likely the juciyest gossip of all whom was being used most by the Master and Mistress of the house.
The scullery was the most dingy place in the house next to the basements (if there was one) any Lady that could afford a servent would have stayed well away from that room of the house. It was where the luandry took place, the dirty dishes of the kitchen and dining piled up, and was left to a single young woman to handle. It was damp, dirty, disgusting, dark,... just plain horrible. Not a place any respectable person would care to spend any length of time in if it could be avoided.
Thusly we come to the Drawing Room, this was the Lady of the House's domain. The center of the home both literally and figuratively, this was the room in which the Mistress ruled over and commanded her servents from. This was also the room by which she recieved visitors, interviewed new servants, punished existing servents, and spent "quality" time with her children by which to raised them in a manner best befitting finding a suitor and marriage upon coming of age to wed. Within the House the woman was the general and this was her command post as it were.
The Parlor was a room meant for entertaining guests, recieving callers, and of course the ever weighing need to marry one's daughters off to proper prospective husbands. It was a room that was used nearly as much as most modern people use thier living and dining rooms nowadays. For parties, teas, poetry readings, buisness meetings, study, crafts, even weddings. This was a place where the upper class gave the best face they could for the sake of thier class and reputation.
To the Victorians and Edwardians the dining room was akin to our modern day kitchens the center of thier family social lives. a place where family gathered at the end of each day to be served by thier staff in the lap of luxery and bask in the glow of thier status. All while catching up on the trival pursuits of the day, the gossips from down the street, and the hardships of growing up.
The Bathroom and lavatory were two very differnt rooms for of all things sanitary reasons. The bathroom resides upstairs in the main of the house in which was placed a permanent tub for bathing. Where as the Lavatory was a room of its own in which resided a flush toilet as they began to gain popularity. The lavatory though was a room off of the back entrance of most homes to keep them separate from the family as they were still considered highly unsanitary, and chamber pots were still more widely used till almost 1920.
Well there you have it the gist of your average upper class home in the Victorian and Edwardian periods. As time goes on I shall divulge more on each room specificly, for now let your imaginations wander as you consider the depraved and shameful acts that each room could have offered its owners and occupants.
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