Dark Style has moved!

The move is complete. Dark Style is live on Word Press. Please make sure to resubscribe to our new feed to receive new stories and content from Dark Style.
The new site location is http://houseoffoust.com/darkstyle/

Our new domain will be included in the next few weeks, the address above will still be good at that point too.

All of the old content has been moved over to the new Word Press site and the old Blogger site will remain active for now. Expect new stories later this week!

Dark Style is moving to Word Press!

If you were wondering where ongoing posting went, I have been in the process of moving Dark Style to Word Press. As soon as the transition is complete the new address and feeds will be posted here.

Victorian Fish Tanks

The Victorians had a keen interest in nature. House plants were a novelty as were fish. A few rare examples of Victorian era fish tanks do exist. The one pictured is a reproduction of a Victorian tank based on illustrations from the era.

Other tanks look more like modern rectangular tanks. The cast iron rectangular tanks provide some ideas on how one might decorate a modern tank to make it more fitting to a room's decor. This large image of an antique tank has great detail to work from (click here for that image).

Clip Art Books For Your Creative Adventures

Dover's collection of clip art books has seen some improvements over the years. They now almost exclusively include a CD of all of the images so they are ready for use. Some of my older Dover books do not include CDs, making their use a bit tedious. Dover also began doing full color books for certain publications.

These are some of my favorites for black and white line drawings, hotlinked to Dover's site.











Dover also carries a line of books with full color and vector images that can be resized. The Pictura series are extremely detailed and useful for even large scale projects.

Pictura includes books of design and art from most of the world's cultures and detailed books of buterflies, flowers, insects and various art styles.

Black and White Conservatory

I stumbled across this image from the Milestone Hotel in London. The hotel's conservatory is done in this striking black and white scheme. The striped draperies and black furnishings have an interesting balance to the all white room.

This pulled together style could be easily recreated for a conservatory, sun room or room with a white on white theme of woodwork and built in cabinetry. Painted or upholstered black furniture and the striped window treatments are the core design elements.

Something that makes the draperies really excel is the combination all done in the same fabric. There are roman shades, regular draperies and a double valance.

Furniture: Victorian Balloon Chair

Design Toscano is carrying this unique reproduction Victorian Balloon chair. This is one reproduction you don't see every day. It is also currently on sale.

Old House Tours, Loch Aerie Victorian Mansion

Old House Tours has a huge photo and video tour of Lockwood Mansion aka: Loch Aerie in Chester County PA. This unique property is a rather rare combination of Italianate and Victorian Gothic on a sprawling estate.

The home has numerous porches, small conservatory areas, ornate plasterwork and a grand central staircase. There are some other oddities in the photo tour. What looks like some sort of wood burning central heating system or a complex wood fired kitchen store. A large wood barrel of some sort installed by one of the spiral staircases makes one wonder about the origins. If your interested it is on the market for $2.2mil and is zoned for commercial.