The Historic District

I was looking at this image:

http://www.shorpy.com/node/19977

and wondering why tongue and groove was the choice for utilitarian rooms and offices like these ? Was it less expensive and required less skill to apply than plaster - or was it tougher wearing ?

I have seen houses in the southern US that are completely tongue and groove - ceiling, walls, floors. In Ontario, you would see tongue and groove wainscotting in bathrooms and kitchens of modest - middle class victorian and younger homes but not much else. Any building material historians out there with some answers ?

In the days before drywall panels, when you had to nail up wood and then plaster over it, I guess it was easier and cheaper just to nail more wood. Later came wood paneling.

My entire house, except for the couple of walls that were added later, is tongue and groove, horizontal on the walls. Even the bathroom had the same walls, later covered in plaster board. I removed some of it to uncover the wood on one wall. I can see that I also have beadboard ceilings, (like my porch) that were covered in decorative sheetrock.

I love the rustic look of the interior of our house.

It was certainly easier and cheaper (if paying someone else to do the work) to use beadboard. Think about it -- nail up lath, mix up and apply three coats of plaster, with drying time in between vs just nailing up some boards that you bought already shaped from the lumber supplier.

And wood is more forgiving than plaster. Knock a chair against a wooden wall and it may leave no mark, or a small one that would not be noticeable. Knock a chair against plaster and you get a nice ding. Not to mention the tendency of plaster to crack over time. It may be for this reason that one often sees beadboard on the lower half of walls, with plaster above; my kitchen was this way originally.

In the 19th and early 20th century, kitchens were not the centers of family life that they have since become. They were viewed as utility spaces, somewhat unsanitary even. One ate in the dining room and kept one's china in the butler's pantry, away from the coal dust, cooking grease, etc. So kitchens often received a less expensive wall treatment. And I think wood was more scrubbable than plaster.

In my Queen Anne Victorian, all the doors and windows are on the tall side, as is typical of such houses. But the doors that go from the dining room and from the sitting room back into the kitchen are a good 6" shorter than the others, clearly showing the status of the kitchen as a "lesser" space.

In the 19th and early 20th century, kitchens were not the centers of family life that they have since become. They were viewed as utility spaces, somewhat unsanitary even. One ate in the dining room and kept one's china in the butler's pantry, away from the coal dust, cooking grease, etc. So kitchens often received a less expensive wall treatment. And I think wood was more scrubbable than plaster.

Only in upper-class homes. In working-class homes and farms the kitchen was sometimes the only heated place during the winter and gathering point for everyone.

That's true, although I would say "upper-class and many middle-class"--particularly toward the end of the 19th century, which was what I had in mind and should have stated more clearly. My own house is a case in point. It was built by a local businessman and politician, a man with some money, but it is not in the same league as the big Victorian houses downtown. Woodwork is pine, not oak or mahogany; door hardware is plain brass, not the fancy Eastlake stuff; the upstairs newel post is very plain while the one downstairs is more elaborate. So they didn't go all out. But it did have a butler's pantry.

Texas_Ranger wrote:
Only in upper-class homes. In working-class homes and farms the kitchen was sometimes the only heated place during the winter and gathering point for everyone.

That would explain why my chimney is outside of what is now my dining room.