Styles of Furniture
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Styles of Furniture
1–10 of 40 posts
Re: Styles of Furniture
#2I 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 an asset.
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 can remember reading maybe 10 years ago that the bottom was falling out of the secondhand furniture market because of a flood of old furniture being sold. Apparently these were often items that had been handed down through generations that young people weren't interested in keeping. Not so much because of the style, but because they simply had nowhere to put it. No permanent home for themselves let alone large pieces of furniture. Quite sad really.
Re: Styles of Furniture
#3I 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.
Re: Styles of Furniture
#4I 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.
In my personal experience, it’s about 50/50 this and lack of home ownership. Whenever I talk to someone 60+, with kids, who is downsizing out of the old family home they inevitably mention having to sell (or more likely scrap or donate) most of their old furniture because their kids either don’t want it or don’t own a home to put it in (and are renting somewhere too small).
Many of their kids, people in my peer group, are in their 30s to early 40s now and still aren’t married and don’t have kids and don’t own a home.
I’ve got a family and a house and I still wouldn’t want any of the old, quality furniture my parents have. It’s just not anything I have a need for.
Re: Styles of Furniture
#5I 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.
I've thought about this for awhile and can't decide if it's because we've rightfully shaken off an uptight bourgeois culture of dinner parties, china, and china cabinets, or if it's because the people who think they're middle class have fallen so far down the well that they can't afford to even pretend they're rich any more.
Re: Styles of Furniture
#6I 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 white and light wood items. The later success of IKEA and chains like Crate & Barrel only accelerated this.
Re: Styles of Furniture
#7Earlier 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.
In my personal experience, it’s about 50/50 this and lack of home ownership. Whenever I talk to someone 60+, with kids, who is downsizing out of the old family home they inevitably mention having to sell (or more likely scrap or donate) most of their old furniture because their kids either don’t want it or don’t own a home to put it in (and are renting somewhere too small). Many of their kids, people in my peer group…
I think it's a bunch of reasons but agree it's probably 50/50. I can certainly relate to having no where to put stuff when my grandparents passed away, so I took one item I could fit into my bedroom.
Another reason is, the craftspeople to maintain this furniture is much rarer. I have a dressing table that was my great grandmothers. It's a beautiful piece and solid as a rock but it's showing wear and tear of daily use every day of my life (and who knows when it was previously restored). Finding someone capable of restoring it is hard, and it's a long manual process which would cost substantially more than buying a new piece. I'll never part with the thing but I doubt I'll ever get it restored either.
My mother has an old settee that was her aunts. It's falling apart needing new springs and upholstery. She's been on a waiting list to get it repaired for years, and the upholsterer isn't taking more clients as he's past retirement age and now does it just a few days a week with a backlog of years.
Re: Styles of Furniture
#8Earlier 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.
I've thought about this for awhile and can't decide if it's because we've rightfully shaken off an uptight bourgeois culture of dinner parties, china, and china cabinets, or if it's because the people who think they're middle class have fallen so far down the well that they can't afford to even pretend they're rich any more.
I mean, I don’t see how the second is in the slightest bit debatable. Fifty or sixty years ago you could afford a car, a smallish but not tiny home (with a yard!) and support kids with a single income - at a factory or other not overly skilled job.
Now many college grads have room mates… and I’m not talking about 20-somethings.
Re: Styles of Furniture
#9I 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_. 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.
Re: Styles of Furniture
#10Earlier 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.
It sounded counterintuitive to me, but particle board seems in fact to be denser than its solid wood counterpart.
Thank you for this learning opportunity!