Welcome to the History Chicks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.

Hi, it's Susan, and here's an audio postcard from me from this summer.

I'm going to talk to you a little bit about painted ladies.

What? It ties into our theme, right? History Chicks, ladies?

Anyway, all over the country there are pockets of these stunning homes,

typically they are painted in more than three colors,

and they were built in the mid to late 1800s to the early 1900s.

Generally they're decorated, the exterior is decorated with woodwork,

which is painted to show off the curlicued trim and other unique architectural details of the house.

As for the architectural style, those homes run the gamut from Gothic to Queen Anne

in a whole mishmosh of styles in between, but often most of us just think of them as a Victorian home.

Typically, the styles of the home changes as the times did.

Victorian give way to Edwardian in the early 1900s and so on.

Sometimes they're called gingerbread houses or gingerbread cottages if they're all in story.

Sometimes they're narrow row houses, and sometimes they're large homes that are now being turned into beautiful bed and breathless.

With their bright contrasting colors, they are very easy to spot.

Now the term painted lady actually didn't even come into use until the 1970s,

and that was thanks to a book about the houses in San Francisco.

The book was entitled painted ladies, San Francisco's resplendent Victorians,

and it's written by Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larson.

The pair took a pictorial view of the trend in the 1970s of restoring this vintage style home.

Of course, now looking back, the 1970s were kind of vintage too.

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