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Styles of Furniture

blog.lostartpress.com

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Re: Styles of Furniture

#31

Post by WillAdams »

pliftkl wrote: post #26
qq66 wrote: post #13

What I find most interesting is the pure literacy on display. This cabinetmaking instructor, admittedly a senior one, writes with more fluid grace than the average Harvard graduate today. "At various periods during the history of this country, circumstances, and the skill of the craftsman, have combined to produce furniture and interior woodwork of distinctive styles, surviving examples of which are to be seen in mus…

Not the author you quote, but Christopher Schwartz, who runs Lost Art Press (which printed what you quoted) can also write a heck of a wood-working book: "The journey to the summit of Mount Vesuvius has all the romance of visiting an unlicensed reptile farms..." - opening line to _Ingenious Mechanicks_, which is a history of early workbenches. (One thing I found fascinating about this book is that it uses religious a…

As a counterpoint, he has a background in magazines, which is often at odds with producing books.

Yes, I'm still upset that I purchased a copy of:

https://lostartpress.com/products/virtuoso

and found it rife with errors (they mis-spell Henry O. Studley's name on the inside front cover), including a duplicated photo (a pair of flat pliers is shown a second time where instead there should be the iconic pair of jeweler's pliers) --- see the excerpt:

https://lostartpress.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/virtuoso_ex...

(which also shows the naïve typesetting of dimensions and that uni-directional quotes are used where primes should have been).

Any reputable book publisher would have issued a cancel for the photo, and no decent composition house would have set dimensions thus.

Re: Styles of Furniture

#32

Post by readingnews »

krunck wrote: post #25

Lost Art Press, it's founder Chris Schwarz, and staff are an amazing resource for woodworkers. They publish excellent books on how to do good woodworking.

He was also a regular guest on the Woodwrights Shop with Roy Underhill, and both of their hand plane collections are quite nice.

Re: Styles of Furniture

#33

Post by MisterTea »

showerst wrote: post #6
tmnvix wrote: post #2

I find the history of furniture really interesting. Not just the changing styles, but also our relationship with it. As I understand it, it wasn't that long ago that a new homeowner would essentially go out and purchase a full set of furniture for their home and that was that. It was expensive. They kept it throughout their lifetime. It lasted. Sometimes furniture was inherited. It had real value and was considered a…

Two other big things: 1. Old well built furniture is _heavy_. This goes from being an asset to a liability if you're moving reasonably often. 2. Furniture tastes among the middle class changed dramatically sometime after maybe 1980? A large ornate wooden cabinet that would've been 'normal' if a little old fashioned any time from the 1880s to the 1970s suddenly looked terribly mismatched in a room full of minimalist w…

> 1. Old well built furniture is _heavy_.

My grandfather had an old dresser that was so heavy that me and another big dude couldn't pick it up. It was on the second floor and measuring the stairwell we realized we could not get it down. It was assembled with complex wood joinery and barely any screws were visible. Wound up having to smash it to pieces with a sledge hammer which mostly bounced off of it. We felt so bad having to do that but the house was being sold and no way was that thing was going down stairs. That thing was incredibly well built.

Compare that to a shitty particleboard Ikea book case I got 2nd hand from a friend where upon assembly a shelf fell and smashed every other shelf going down tearing the pegs from the particleboard essentially self destructing. Took me hours to glue it back together. Light though.

Re: Styles of Furniture

#34

Post by powersnail »

tmnvix wrote: post #2

I find the history of furniture really interesting. Not just the changing styles, but also our relationship with it. As I understand it, it wasn't that long ago that a new homeowner would essentially go out and purchase a full set of furniture for their home and that was that. It was expensive. They kept it throughout their lifetime. It lasted. Sometimes furniture was inherited. It had real value and was considered a…

> Then sometime in maybe the last 50 years or so we started buying and manufacturing much cheaper furniture that wasn't expected to last.

I agree with the not-expected-to-last-ness, but I don't know about cheaper. Anecdotally, in recent years, quite a number of my friends became new home owners, and many purchased expensive furniture from big brands, which don't seem to be really all that more durable at all. They are like 10~100x times the price of an IKEA's equivalent, but marginally better in build quality. Some of them are even less well-made than IKEA. (Dining table with a surface that you can't put hot thing on, circular things that aren't perfectly circular, sofa cushions that start sinking within a year of use, etc.)

One of the couple-of-thousand table is less than two years old, and has chipped veneer, loosened screws, and is just generally flex-y and wobbly. The table top has already been replaced once, and it took 6 months for the replacement to arrive. Meanwhile, I have a nearly 10-year-old IKEA table with minor cosmetic scratches, no wobbling, nothing loose, steady, and practical.

I feel like if I ever buy a house, it will be either IKEA or custom made from someone I trust.

Re: Styles of Furniture

#35

Post by TylerE »

pmlnr wrote: post #12
TylerE wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of that furniture is just sorta irrelevant. 21st century adults don’t need secretaries or China cabinets, and most don't want any formal living room or dining room furniture. We don't have ROOM for it. We aren't our parents or our grandparents. We don't own 3000 sq ft detached homes.

> don’t need x > don't have ROOM These are not the same.

They're strongly correlated. The more space you have, the lower the bar of "how many days a year do I need to use this to justify the space it takes up.

Re: Styles of Furniture

#36

Post by TylerE »

tivert wrote: post #27
TylerE wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of that furniture is just sorta irrelevant. 21st century adults don’t need secretaries or China cabinets, and most don't want any formal living room or dining room furniture. We don't have ROOM for it. We aren't our parents or our grandparents. We don't own 3000 sq ft detached homes.

> We don't have ROOM for it. We aren't our parents or our grandparents. We don't own 3000 sq ft detached homes. I think the implication you're making that previous generations had much more living space is false. My grandparents lived in a rural area in a pretty small home with one bathroom. If you look at 50s tract homes, they're all small by modern standards.

The "modern standard" is starting to look a lot more like a bedroom in a shared apartment, or a studio, not a tract home.

Re: Styles of Furniture

#37

Post by m463 »

I think a lot of the style in older and modern pieces comes from the technology of the time.

Lots of those cabinets are ornate, because designing with panels allows for the growing and shrinking wood with temperature and humidity. The joints were also complicated, for the same reasons and to deal with the limitations of fasteners.

Centuries ago, if someone had duplicated an ikea design out of solid wood, it might come apart quickly because of the wood growing and shrinking, and the limits of old fasteners and simple joints.

It's ok to dislike ikea furniture, but remember that it is sophisticated in many hidden ways. The materials used are dimensionally stable, the fasteners are advanced, everything comes in a large flat boxes, and it can be assembled by most purchasers.

That said, there is some amazing furniture that has been built by hand. I also like those "hidden compartment" pieces you sometimes see.

Re: Styles of Furniture

#38

Post by an_aparallel »

When we first came to Australia in '91 - there was a store - "KC Country Furniture"(which is now no longer here of course)....my dad bought a 6 seat dinner table, and a large buffet for close to $3K, made out of solid teak.

Its now 2024 - and on many occassions he's mentioned to me wanting to sell this stuff, and replace it. I've argued that these are now "family heirlooms"...and that i'd be very upset if he did that.

I've refinished both of these pieces once every 2 years (once i got old enough to) Its 2024 and they have no sign of deterioration. In fact - every time i finish them - i feel pride, and marvel at the glass-like finish.

In comparison - i bought a black 4-legged table for a turntable in my studio a few years ago - and reading that it was "made with cardboard"...just made me a little sad...also considering if i took it apart it was most likely toast...made me even sadder.

Re: Styles of Furniture

#39

Post by ipqk »

vundercind wrote: post #9
showerst wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two other big things: 1. Old well built furniture is _heavy_. This goes from being an asset to a liability if you're moving reasonably often. 2. Furniture tastes among the middle class changed dramatically sometime after maybe 1980? A large ornate wooden cabinet that would've been 'normal' if a little old fashioned any time from the 1880s to the 1970s suddenly looked terribly mismatched in a room full of minimalist w…

> 1. Old well built furniture is _heavy_. This goes from being an asset to a liability if you're moving reasonably often. Ehhhh… sometimes. Solid wood’s usually way lighter than the same thing built in particle board or plywood, though.

A lot of modern flatpack furniture isn't even particle board or plywood, it's structural cardboard. eg. https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/ka4jl6/t...

Modern solid-wood furniture makes use of lighter materials too. Sometimes the backboard will be thin particle board, or certain planks will be pretty thin. Or the drawers are made of much lighter wood, possibly veneered. Also, the designs are much less ornate.

So in general, your modern solid wood furniture AND cheap, flatpack stuff will be lighter that old well-built furniture.

Re: Styles of Furniture

#40

Post by ipqk »

powersnail wrote: post #34
tmnvix wrote: post #2

I find the history of furniture really interesting. Not just the changing styles, but also our relationship with it. As I understand it, it wasn't that long ago that a new homeowner would essentially go out and purchase a full set of furniture for their home and that was that. It was expensive. They kept it throughout their lifetime. It lasted. Sometimes furniture was inherited. It had real value and was considered a…

> Then sometime in maybe the last 50 years or so we started buying and manufacturing much cheaper furniture that wasn't expected to last. I agree with the not-expected-to-last-ness, but I don't know about cheaper. Anecdotally, in recent years, quite a number of my friends became new home owners, and many purchased expensive furniture from big brands, which don't seem to be really all that more durable at all. They ar…

Modern furniture (even those "fancy" new DTC brands you hear on podcasts) has taking a nosedive since it's been offshored: https://wapo.st/4bnkYl6

These days, if you want quality, you pretty much have to make sure it's made in America or Europe.

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