Archive for the ‘Understanding Hardwood and Furniture Construction’ Category

Is Your Wood Furniture Killing You?

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

It’s important that your furniture be free of toxic stains and finishes. Many manufacturers use materials and chemicals that are less than eco-friendly. Some of these materials are often toxic to the family using the furniture every day. Yet, these materials are used in mass produced furniture lines that occupies most retail showrooms. There are [...]

Amish Furniture Home Blog Carnival: Vol 2

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

Here at Amish Tables, we believe embrace everything about Amish Furniture. That includes the it’s timeless quality and amazing craftsmanship, but also the lesser known eco-friendly, sustainability factors of Amish furniture. There’s also the amazing creativity that goes into interior designs integrating Amish pieces.
For this, our second Blog Carnival, we have collected posts [...]

Kovels say Yes to Furniture as Investments In a Slow Economy

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

 
Can furniture be a wise investment? Even in a slow economy? According to the Kovels website data gatherers number three of the Top Twenty most sought after searches in July 2009 was indeed furniture. The Kovels are considered the leading expert in collectibles and antiques and not only publish the most sought after price guides [...]

Keeping The Faith in Furniture with the Shakers and the Amish- How Religion Influenced Designs in America (part 2)

Monday, July 27th, 2009

 The Amish arrived in America around 1730. A group of the descendants of the Anabaptists, which include Amish and Mennonites, settled near Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  William Penn had began a ‘holy experiment’ in religious tolerance and welcomed these European immigrants. Although the most popularized, the Pennsylvania Amish are not the largest group of U.S. In [...]

Keeping The Faith in Furniture with the Shakers and the Amish- How Religion Influenced Designs in America (part 1)

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

 Historians following the trends of the furniture industry can attest that furniture styles and their designers are virtual archives of an era. The economy of the time, the availability of supplies and tools and most surprising, the politics and religion of the time all influenced home décor. Religion and the organizations that formed around each [...]

A Brief History of 20th Century Depression Era Veneered Furniture- How a Bad Economy Influenced Design Styles

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

The furniture term Depression era has come to mean a piece dating from the ‘20s, ‘30s or early 1940s. The stock market crash that occurred on that black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, soon became better known as the Great Depression. The Depression was a rapidly spreading worldwide economic downturn that was not easily recovered from [...]

A Brief History of 19th Century Eclectic from the Civil War to Modernism

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

 
The years surrounding Civil War was not just a separation of tastes politically but one in interior décor. The last part of the 19th century in North America saw the blending of many very strong interior design tastes within one home. Many consider this to be the Eclectic period in American history. This eclectic collecting [...]

A Brief History of The Use of North American Hardwoods

Monday, July 13th, 2009

 
Hardwood as a natural resource that has helped shaped not just communities but the evolution of societies in to countries such as the United States. Natural resources have always been a major factor in determining how well an environment can sustain people but wood has an influence that runs deeper than everything but food and [...]

A Brief History of Federal Furniture: Collecting a Revolutionary Design

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

                                                                          Perhaps it was the birth of a new nation that spurred great interest in both furniture and architecture during what became known as the Federal Era. Federal was an American period that existed from the end of the Revolution (1780) to post-Revolutionary War (1830). It was the end of the Colonial Period in [...]

A Brief History of the Solid Wood Windsor Bentwood Chairs

Monday, June 29th, 2009

 

 
 
There may not be a better known or more duplicated wooden chair in the world than the Windsor. The Windsor is well recognized for its bentwood back frame and its pegged legs going directly in to its wooden seat. The Windsor is differentiated from other styles of chairs because of this styling that normally are [...]