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Styles of Furniture

blog.lostartpress.com

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Re: Styles of Furniture

#21

Post by kypro »

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…

I'm sure there is still plenty of quality furniture being made, but being on a budget in my 20s they were out of reach. I brought a lot new furniture when I brought my first home and almost all of it fell apart within 10 years, some in a matter of years. Specifically Veneered MDF would chip and would often fall apart at joins. Plastic drawer rails would snap. If a kid climbed on them they had no structural strength and would bits. The thin back panels of cabinets would come away from the body or break off and reattaching every few years.

In recent years we've instead been picking up old furniture people are getting rid of (for free) and refurbishing it. The only thing I look for is that it's made of quality materials which isn't hard to find if the furniture is 30+ years old.

I think some people don't want old furniture because it looks dated, but the nice thing about refurbishing is that you can quite easily add modern touches – or just whatever style takes your fancy. Chairs can be equipped with modern pillows and a new finish. Or old cabinets can have new door handles, hinges and a modern paint job, etc. Apart from the furniture we want to look older, I doubt most people would even realise it's all 30+ years old.

Additionally all the furniture we have now can be refurbed when we want a new look and they actually last... It's more effort for sure, but it's nothing an amateur DIYer can do with a few tools and a bit of creativity. And if you don't need them anymore (because you're moving etc) people will happily pay good money for quality refurbed furniture. What people won't buy is some crappy 10 year old Ikea cabinet.

Re: Styles of Furniture

#22

Post by ses1984 »

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.

Old furniture isn’t engineered to use the minimum amount of material like modern furniture.

Re: Styles of Furniture

#23

Post by Naijoko »

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…

My Grandmother , 96 years old, got her Furniture from her Grandmother. That furniture is more then 100 years old and still in good condition. The downside is it sucks hard. People at that time liked good looking things that where rly uncomfortable and impractible compared to furniture today.

Re: Styles of Furniture

#24

Post by OJFord »

> 1745-1780 Chippendale. 1760-1792 Adam. 1760-1790 Hepplewhite. 1790-1810 Sheraton.

More often George II/III, as far as I've seen in the UK, at auction for example. (Don't think I've even heard of Adam or Hepplewhite before, not that I'm big into furniture periods.)

Re: Styles of Furniture

#25

Post by krunck »

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.

Re: Styles of Furniture

#26

Post by pliftkl »

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 art to infer details about workbenches, because Yeshua Bin-Maryam was thought to be a "carpenter", and medieval artists drew contemporary medieval workbenches in pictures of the child Yeshua.)

Re: Styles of Furniture

#27

Post by tivert »

TylerE wrote: post #3
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…

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.

Re: Styles of Furniture

#28

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Styles of Furniture

#29

Post by wlesieutre »

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.

Several of his books are available as free PDFs too

https://lostartpress.com/products/the-anarchists-workbench

https://lostartpress.com/products/the-anarchists-tool-chest

https://lostartpress.com/products/the-anarchists-design-book

Re: Styles of Furniture

#30

Post by vundercind »

JR1427 wrote: post #17
vundercind wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

But you can usually take apart (at least a few times) modern flatpack furniture, making it easier to transport.

This is true—an IKEA Billy, say, is really heavy for the volume of material involved (compared with the same amount of oak, for example) but is designed for cheap + packs-flat, not to minimize weight. It does win on size and stackability, when disassembled.
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