5 Reasons Why Fine Furniture is Eco-Friendly

1. Recyclable. True heirloom, fine furniture is recyclable in an unconventional way. Several owners can reuse the piece before the end of that heirloom is carted off to the landfill. Long after their original use, some furniture is reclaimed or the accessories (like handles, knobs and hinges) are used as interior decoration. Accessories are also placed on other functional furniture to add character.
2. Durability. Although the original pricing on fine furniture can be quite expensive, the pieces end up lasting much longer than other types of furniture. In this way, the fine pieces end up saving you the cost of replacing them every few years (sooner if made of inferior materials). Furthermore, broken furniture goes into the trash–unusable. Like all durable goods, fine furniture’s longevity equals one less tree that has to be cut down.
3. Natural. Fine furniture that is similar to the pieces made at Amish Tables isn’t made using plastics. The plastics and other materials contribute to the nation’s petroleum dependence and to global warming. There are also no veneers (wood or synthetic filler) to inhibit quality or particleboard, known to release small amounts of toxic formaldehyde into the air.
4. Pesticide free crops. The fine furniture makers that supply Amish Tables and a few other distributors prohibit the use of pesticides on the new cotton grown for use in its upholstery.
5. Transported efficiently. Family furniture makers, including those working with Amish Tables, custom make each piece. They then ship it from the showroom direct to your home. There is no distribution center and thus no need for the additional freight. That and the ship-on-demand-system cuts down on unnecessary freight emissions.

No Need to Suffer When Going Green

Everyone can contribute to the green effort, without sacrificing style in your home. However, the change to eco-friendly living does require you to research not only the furniture that you intend to buy, but also the company making it. Make sure that the manufacturer supports environmentally conscience activities from the material acquisition to your doorstep.

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 but now, thanks to the internet, are able to accumulate data in real time based on the results of hundreds of thousands of searches that take place on its website daily.

Furniture has actually held in the top twenty all year while many other collectibles have fallen off drastically. While the small decorative items labeled Occupied Japan remain on top, people are still seeking to identify, find, purchase and sell large items like furniture. Summer time can cause decorators and collectors alike to seek out garden or rustic outdoor themed pieces. Pairing antiques and your Amish designs can give your home a whimsical garden theme.  Rustic furniture made of natural materials, native hardwoods and designed in organic shapes became popular in camps and gardens in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Amish builders craft hickory in to highly sought after furniture that brings the feeling of nature indoors.

Pieces featuring the organic look of log designs like the Lumberjack Hickory bed will remain a family heirloom. Benches, chairs and tables with accents reminding you of bent twigs and roots mimic the Adirondack themes of the Great Camps at the turn of the last century. Original bent twigs chairs sold at a recent Kamelot auction in Philadelphia for $1,230 but the Hickory King chair can be yours and usable for half that. This design theme has held its own for many decades and still remains a top searched furniture item on a top collector’s website, just as the Amish solid wood furniture at Amish-Furniture-Home.com is the number one custom furniture website on any search of fine heirlooms to invest in during any economy.

The Slow Food movement goes to the root of the love food, quite literally. They feel that in order to preserve the cultural cuisine we must preserve the food plants as well as seeds. They also believe that the domesticated food animals are included in that preservation. Slow Food lovers have formed and are sustaining seed banks that are storing heirloom seeds that may otherwise be lost. The idea of farming within an ecoregion is a big part of the belief system. Like the great orator William Morris speaking out for artisan and craftsmanship in furniture during the Arts and Crafts Movement, the Slow Food movement has local leaders who are responsible for promoting local artisans, local farmers, and local flavors through regional events like wine tastings, and farmers’ markets.

Besides preserving the seeds and the animals used in preparing a Slow Food meal the philosophy of the members is that we should be preserving and promoting local and traditional food products, along with their stories or lore and their preparation. They even host celebrations of local cuisine within each region. They also promote the art of eating quality food and educate consumers on the high risk involved in consuming fast foods. They also help educate consumers on the facts about commercial agriculture and “factory farming” with the high rate of hormones and the environmental impacts.

An heirloom quality solid Native hardwood table created by Amish craftsmen is the perfect place to host a Convivium a Casa. These events bring small groups of the movement’s local membership together to enjoy the pleasure of each others company in the intimacy of a host home. Here they share in the preparation and joys of a fine meal at a fine table. Each host a Convivium a Casa decides on how many people they would like to invite. Small groups of perhaps 6 to 10 people do allow for a more comfortable evening of conversation and fellowship. As a host, you get the honor of setting the menu and plans for the evening, although you can enlist the help of those who will be attending. Attendees and the host do provide the food for potlucks or do absorb or split all costs if not. By determining the format and the costs in advance it will allow members to know how much the event will cost.

Sparse, clean, oversimplified, organic and often based on geometric shapes many people, especially those who really do not understand or prefer Modern designs, would find it surprising how much of their lives are touched by contemporary Modern design or how much thinkers like William Morris, Louis Sullivan and others of their era, actually inspired the movement.

Morris engaged in the practice of warm and fuzzy, if not always practical, ideals and dreams for society. He felt it not just a wish but an essential of civilized society to insure that it provide its citizens, one and all, with aesthetically pleasing and functional things to look at and use. He however was convinced that the quality he sought could not be accomplished by machines but only by craftsmen and women by hand. He set his goal beyond reason, since the amount of artisans it would take to create the massive amounts needed to furnish the world’s homes was not possible – without machines, that is. Morris also developed this school of thought just as we were entering into the great Industrial Revolution and once entered in to there was no going back completely.

Early modern designers grasped the philosophy that the great orator Morris taught but felt that machines could be manipulated to be as artistic as any man and that mass production would accomplish Morris’ goals. Henri van de Velde was one of his peers who believed that the machines could be guided to create beauty.  They all agreed in the principles but not how to get there. They also agreed in the simplicity of design seen in the Arts and Crafts and Mission designs. The American architect Louis Sullivan, who once influenced the father of organic design, young Frank Lloyd Wright, believed that form indeed followed function and went so far as to suggest that we should purge ourselves of ornamentation for a few years so we could enjoy the structure in its original concept.

While it seems a stretch from the heavy oak Mission type Morris reclining chair to the Barcelona chair of the 1920’s once you trace the roots of both philosophy in design concepts, they are indeed closely related. Today the Amish present Modern contemporary furniture that represents these designers’ ideals as well as the elegantly designed home, in custom stained and conceived design collections like the Brookline, Caledonia, Escalade and Kenwood and more.

From 1560 through the mid nineteenth century and geographically from New Mexico, California, and Texas to Louisiana and Florida, the United States saw many influences brought from Spain. Because of the extreme isolation of many of the Spanish settlement the residents were not able to acquire the decorations for interior design that they may have otherwise used. Because of this, even the wealthiest Spaniard’s homes were considered sparse.

Priests set out to build missions with a crude set of tools that eventually wore out or broke. Because of the remoteness of their settlements these tools were not replaced. They would have to learn to craft their own devices or do without when constructing these missions. Many people from the east considered these settlements in California to be crude and primitive. These same structures would later influence great designers who brought us Mission style designs.

A prized possession of any Spanish home was the trasteras. The trasteras was a tall cabinet, often with grill work inserted in its doors, used to store valuables or even meat. The solid wood, often hand painted “trastero” or sideboard was the most traditional of Mexican furniture. This piece worked for both serving and storing.

Pine was a dominant wood of choice in most of this early furniture. Brightly colored paints set the Western furniture apart. A technique called chip carving was a standard among furniture makers in this genre, especially when built in pine. After the Santa Fe Trail more tools were made available and this style was popularized. Chip carving, or spoon carving, is a style of wood carving that utilizes knives to remove small chips of wood from the surface in a single piece.

As in the organic designs of Mission, earthenware pottery, wood, copper and iron, and even native stone was used to bring the outside in. Geraniums were often a highlight in many New Mexican homes. When Mission designs came to rescue the American patrons overindulged in Victorian gilding, the natural sparseness of the West was its influence.

With the Arts and Crafts Movement reaching its zenith from 1900 to 1915 by 1901, Stickley had turned “mission” furniture into an American living room standard. Suffering from an over-exposure to the gilded machine age of Victorian England, social reformers such as William Morris and John Ruskin founded the Arts & Crafts movement in Britain during the late nineteenth century. Their literal philosophy declared that a return to simplicity was needed to protect society from the growing inhumanity of the Industrial Revolution.

After traveling to Europe, Gustav Stickley was deeply inspired by these European social reformers. After his return to the States Stickley constructed an organic philosophy of simplicity and function that became famous world round. His take on the Arts and Crafts philosophy came to life in his radical and functional furniture style. Furniture was not the only thing Gustav cared about when creating an organic environment for the American home, and in fact he soon began designing the actual homes. Stickley published the famous Craftsman magazine, hosting the Craftsman Home Builders Club, through which tens of thousands of blueprints for homes were free to subscribers.

Today Amish craftsman, many like Stickley of German ancestry, bring the same honest, integrity that Gustav Stickley sought when he designed his American idea of Arts and Crafts called Craftsman. Solid native American hardwoods, fantastic stain choices and durable construction and finishes, are all available now in Mission, Craftsman and Arts and Crafts designs; thanks to the honorable woodworking Amish artisans, keeping Stickley alive today.

One of the Pennsylvania Dutch groups, the Amish, has a diet considered to be considerably low in processed foods. Although influences have crept in based on the various regional and religious backgrounds (predominantly the Amish, Mennonite, Moravians, etc.) of each of the Pennsylvania Dutch communities, the tables and cupboards of a typical home are loaded with the resources of the agricultural lifestyle they cultivated in Pennsylvania Dutch Country.

Bringing little with them except salt and a few spices, these early Pennsylvania Dutch cooks were highly ingenious in their methods of food preservation. Using methods like smoking, drying, brining, pickling and even dried fruits in their cooking, they made their larder full. The philosophy of balance was achieved with the salty pickling and the sweet treats creating the seven sweets and seven sours meal.

True to their beliefs in not wasting resources, the Pennsylvania Dutch cooks often made use of food parts otherwise discarded. Like the Shakers the Pennsylvania Dutch were green before green was fashionable, honoring God and their world by using their assets in a responsible and accountable fashion. From pig organs to watermelon rind, nothing is wasted in the home of a Pennsylvania Dutch family.

Especially maintained by Amish families today, is the idea of seven sweets and seven sours, which stems from an ancient European custom based on the belief that everything should be properly balanced. Usually served in large families, and especially when serving company, seven various pickled foods, relishes, and spreads are laid out on the table. Because of the lack of of refrigeration these are often preserved in the summer for winter consumption. Alongside these are served the heartier starchy, and more filling dishes as part of the evening meal. These delicacies can be accompaniments or served by themselves.

The traditional sweet and savory or sweet and sour foods can be mixed all in the same dish as long as “seven sweets and seven sours” should be represented. The traditional “sweets” are usually based on locally-grown fruits such as apples, berries, or even candied watermelon rind. The “sours” are pickled onion, cauliflower, beets, tomato relish, spiced cucumbers and even more specialties that grew from definite German Old World influences. Their spicy flavors and their endless variety fill many an Amish themed country store. Spicy, pickled, preserved and cured, the Pennsylvania Dutch woman has always known how to present a spread for large families and groups from spiced peaches to pickled chow chow.

William Morris was a writer, orator, artist, textile designer, wallpaper artisan and poet. Morris held strong beliefs that in an age of modern machines and gilded homes that men truly should have equal access to a quality of life and articles around them should be of artisan, rather than mass, production. In turn-of-the-century Great Britain Morris was not just involved with designing furniture, wallpapers and textiles. William Morris carried his political beliefs into his work life, believing that these beliefs and ideals would eventually produce equal opportunities for everyone to own his works.

Politically William Morris was an involved in early English Social Democracy. He joined the Social Democratic Federation 1883. After a fight with Henry Hyndman, the founder of the SDF group, Morris founded his own group, called the Socialist League. When asked to explain how he fell into Socialism, Morris delivered an explanation in “How I Became a Socialist” that read in part -

“Well, what I mean by Socialism is a condition of society in which there should be neither rich nor poor, neither master nor master’s man, neither idle nor overworked, neither brain­slack brain workers, nor heart­sick hand workers, in a word, in which all men would be living in equality of condition, and would manage their affairs unwastefully, and with the full consciousness that harm to one would mean harm to all-the realisation at last of the meaning of the word COMMONWEALTH .”

Morris, a student of medieval times, was himself a natural educator, writing and lecturing on street-corners in England and Scotland. Supposedly after delving into Marx’s Das Kapital in a French translation, he declared himself a Marxist. Morris was a man of awe inspiring energy, who possessed huge talents and ideals. Morris dreamt enormous dreams of a Socialist Revolution in England. He saw his world, his Victorian Britain, as physically ravaged and spiritually drained by the Industrial Revolution. He longed for a more artist-centric, communal, mediaeval agrarian society that was filled with happy, healthy people, all enjoying the work they did by hand.

Although Morris himself did not quite succeed in his selfless attempts to encourage a relationship between industry and craft, his ideas were not a failure. American Gustav Stickley brought the ideas of Morris’s Arts and Crafts Movement to the new country and was able to merge mass production with handmade craftsmanship. Stickley’s German-American Yankee ingenuity coupled with the Morris’s politics, ideals and gifts created some of the most sought after designs in history.

While, William Morris was indeed a man who was not in love with the world he had been born into, he seemed to see socialism as a means to an end. That end was supposed to transform the ugliness he saw in late century Britain into the beauty that he hoped it once was and could be. In his “News From Nowhere” he would write:

The earth and the growth of it and the life of it! If I could but say or show how I love it!

In a very real sense his entire life, especially his organic designs in home décor, was a successful attempt to share the meaning of those lines with others. While some believe he was an eccentric utopian, his life’s work lives on in print, in the organization called the William Morris Society and in home decors worldwide.

• FLOWERS & FOLIAGE-

Quite simply, flowers can create a theme. They can also indicate a seasonal direction to your celebration. While it would be nice to be able to afford a fresh cut bouquet from even the grocery your arrangements do not have to include even a single bloom or blossom. For instance, a contemporary theme, one of bold sparseness, can be reflected in a tall glass vase, weighted with river rocks or glass baubles and holding long, wispy wooden stems or branches cut from your yard. Seasonal fruit vines or branches, again found in the great outdoors, filled and flowing from a vase speaks to the local fruits you may serve. Even a bowl of colorful vegetables can add a pop of color.

By placing a coordinating wreath at the door you can easily carry the theme from your threshold to your foyer and living room and then to your Amish custom built dining room suite. If you have an old wreath just recycle and reclaim it by adding fresh touches to it, or create one from vines or bendable branches. A door piece does not have to be round but instead can be a gathered and beribboned bunch of florals or foliage.

Inexpensive candles always highlight the most simple table arrangements. If the theme is a tea party, why not fill the tea pot with blooms? A garden theme looks great with already owned garden tools as a center piece. Stop and look around before going out to buy a new centerpiece, but never skip on the center piece, since it is high impact for low cost and a focal point of the meal.

• TABLE LINENS-

Table linens can range from a coveted vintage lace table cloth, to an Amish quilt or to a crisp and inexpensive fabric piece or sheet. A set of plain white napkins is always a great investment. The napkins can be bound with something carrying the theme of the day or the theme of the floral and foliage arrangements. A simple ribbon makes an understated napkin ring. Large napkins can even be converted to placemats when unfolded. Stained napkins and table cloths can be bleached out or tea stained into a recycled and highly fashionable shabby chicness.

• WHO’S WHO-

If you want to provide a sense of elegance and thoughtfulness, make each guest a place card. The art of using place cards kicks any tea, lunch or dinner up to the next level and can be created for virtually nothing. While even nicely printing each guest’s name on a simple tent-folded, plain 3 x 5 card is a statement, you can also pick up a favor for each guest at a dollar store. A small frame holding their place card, a basket of candies with their name attached, a candle with a labeled name, a sachet with the name in marker…the list of place card favors is endless and very affordable.

Another fun thing to do is to create a menu for each plate. Today’s computers usually come with templates to create cards and menus, or you can search online. It adds a touch of fun and class.

• COLORS-

Something as simple as color can actually be a theme for your event. All white, or the latest trend of using only black and white, can develop a boring dinner party into something spectacular for no added costs. If you use bold colors remember do not mix even one pastel and visa versa and keep the coloring throughout the arrangements and the linens.

• MIX AND MATCH-

Can’t afford additional place settings or maybe you don’t have a set of fine china at all? Thrift stores hold treasured pieces of china and glassware that can be bought for pennies to create an eclectic and enviable dinnerware collection that no one else has. While an entire table of matching dishes is indeed very elegant it can also be cost prohibitive and even blah. Why not show some imagination and pick out the best of each find you can. You can even mix it with your own set of dishes to extend them when the guest list grows longer than your place settings.

 By using these tips and more to come here at Amish-Furniture-Home.com you can host and enjoy many cost effective and unforgettable events with your well appointed Amish built furniture investments.

Anyone can “make a bed” but to truly make your bed into an elegant, comfortable place on which to lie down actually takes quite a bit of thought, design and craftsmanship. The pier bed crafted by the Amish has all that combined with the common sense of plentiful storage, solid native hardwood beauty and the good looks of well thought out design. Sizes range from double to queen to the much coveted king-size beds and these large and graciously proportioned bedroom suites are everything a well appointed boudoir needs.

The Pier Bedroom Suite literally includes everything you need for your bedroom. Each side of the bed has a “pier”, which, in fact, are actually side armoires that are 22 1/2″w x 22 1/2″d x 81″h. Each pier comes with a set of three dovetailed, full extension, drawers for books, writing implements, socks, underclothes, etc. Above each of these roomy and well-constructed drawers is a pull-out shelf to be used as a night table, desk, or even a snack table. There are two more adjustable shelves behind the door of the side armoires.

Centered above the bed as a sort of headboard, is a beveled mirror highlighted by two touch lights placed strategically in the bridge of the pier. There is even more storage in the headboard for books, glasses, laptops, etc. Unbelievably, there is even the well thought-out option of adding additional under the bed storage drawers for winter clothing, shoes or whatever you treasure.

The pier bed wall unit has the Amish collection’s signature form and construction. With more option than the famous Murphy bed any apartment dweller could benefit for a lifetime by a single purchase of a pier bed wall unit, especially with the additional under bed storage options. This bed can be disassembled and moved, if needed, yet give any room the appearance of a custom built bedroom. Hotels, motels, efficiency long term stay dwellings, assisted living facilities could also benefit by the durable bedroom choice of a pier bed wall unit built ingeniously by the Amish.