There are many things I am not going to miss about living in a Victorian build – draughts, damp and dust being the TLDR version. What I am going to miss, though, are the ceilings. I love ceilings in Victorian buildings.
First of all, they’re nice and high, and coupled with the larger rooms you tend to get in such houses, they give a real airy sense of space. I grew up in a Victorian building – my parents still live there – and so I often find more modern houses with their low ceilings to be a bit claustrophobic.
The main thing, though, is the pretty detailing you get on the ceilings. The house in which I grew up has absolutely beautiful cornices, at which I still find myself staring for ages whenever I visit home. The house in which we live at the moment doesn’t have cornices, sadly, but it does have this lovely arch detail in the downstairs hallway:
…and this ceiling rose in the living room:
…both of which I absolutely love. I will miss these pretty embellishments when we move into a more modern building, but I am looking forward to better insulation and hoovering not being a largely pointless exercise!