Bungalow Chest: a display of the Shaker style

Shaker

Shakers are known for their neatness and sense of order that permeates their art, work, and daily lives. This simplicity is found in their furniture style that the Amish borrow to make things like the Brookside Shaker Bed made by Amish Furniture Home.

Shaker furniture also has a functionality quality that requires every part to have a purpose. This means that there will be no faux drawers or decorative knobs on the piece. Just look at the Bungalow Chest; every door, drawer, and knob on the piece has a utility. There are no embellishments. Shaker furniture is simple, functional. This style is also known for the dovetail joinery technique, which can be seen here.

Mission/Arts and Crafts

The Mission Style can be traced back to the late 19th Century British Arts and Crafts Movement in England. This movement was a return to craftsmanship and artistry which developed as a rebellion against ornate Victorian design and mass production of the Industrial Age. The movement is characterized by simple lines, durable materials and the irreplaceable fine craftsmanship of the human hand.

American Mission Bed

The term ‘Mission’ to describe a rustic, clean-lined style of furniture began around 1895 and is attributed to Joseph McHugh, a furniture manufacturer from New York. The first design was for a straight lined, rush-seated chair which was influenced by and used in the Spanish missions of California.

Today the Mission Style is known for its simple, straight and solid design, emphasizing linear construction, exposed joinery, andmost of all craftsmanship. Look at the American Mission Bed for an example. There are no curved lines. Even the top of the posts are straight, cornered.

Queen Anne Bed: a tribute to classic Queen Anne style

Queen Anne

The Queen Anne style of furniture originated from Great Britain in the early 1700’s. It was revived in the late 1800’s and was a little more ornate than the Shaker and Mission styles, but more subtle than the Victorian style furniture. The subtle ornate look appeals to the Amish simplicity.

The cabriole legs characterize Queen Anne furniture, as well as the fiddle backed chairs and batwinged drawer knobs. The furniture utilizes curves, but keeps them clean. The Queen Anne Bed showcases this style of furniture perfectly.

When looking for your next Amish furniture piece, consider the influences that are at work in each piece and how they will work within the décor of your home. Built by craftsmen who pass on their trade from generation to generation, these artisans are building pieces the same way that furniture makers did over one hundred years ago. These pieces truly are heirloom quality!

The Shakers were always a small group whose self-imposed abstinence insured their demise. At their zenith the group held about 4000 members spread among nineteen self-sustaining communities. The Shakers lived the example set forth in the Holy Bible about living in the world without being a part of it. The community’s business sense was astonishing, especially for a small nineteenth century religious organization.

Although not part of the world it is obvious that Ann Lee, the group’s founder who had arrived the New World pre-American Revolution, was influenced by the Federal design style of that era. The Shakers had taken the Federal template and created a less formal and more rural design based on the needs and ideals of the farming communities they settled in. The influence of their religious beliefs and their country settings brought forth functional furniture with clean and simple lines. This was especially appealing to those who were suffocating under the opulence and gilding that was the Victorians.

The Shakers not only opened the door for the Arts and Crafts Movement in America but actually inspired some of its founders. The cousin of Arts and Crafts, American Mission and its father, Gustav Stickley, were quite possibly more warmly welcomed because of the influence of the Shaker ideals and products.

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.

 Art Deco-

Art Deco was born in 1925 at the Paris International Exposition and lived and evolved over a quarter of a century. Evoking images of nude nymphs, geometry-centric lines curves and shapes, early chrome and glass and caricatures of greyhound dogs, Art Deco has often been misunderstood.

Within the genre of Deco there were several sub-categories. French Deco was opulent; using exotic inlaid woods along with leather and fur. American designers adopted the symmetrical curves of French deco and included in every detail of their designs in that era, from furniture to jewelry. Modernism was hot and vinyl coverings and chrome-plated brass was in vogue.

By 1950 Deco included black wrought iron and pink accent pieces and was so massively produced it is still easily found by collectors today. Blue tinted glass top tables and “Chase” chrome were hot décor items.

Art Nouveau-

Literally translated Art Nouveau means “New Art”. This often whimsical New Art appeared in every facet of decorative arts at the end of the ostentatious Rococo period of the 1800s. There was a famous shop on the Rue de Provence called “L’Art Nouveau”. This gallery was opened in 1895 by the German art dealer Siegfried Bing in Paris and its core focus was on modern art. After the “1900 Exposition Universelle” the shop was popularized because of the displays of Bing’s modern furniture, tapestries and objets d’art. So strong was the connection between these modern decorative displays and the store that the name of Bing’s gallery became a commonly-used term for the décor itself.

Just as William Morris’s Arts and Crafts Movement did, Art Nouveau maked art part of everyday life. Louis Comfort Tiffany (February 18, 1848 – January 17, 1933) was an American artist and designer who used Art Nouveau designs to create an empire. Tiffany worked in the decorative arts but is best known for his stained glass and lamps in the Art Nouveau and Aesthetic movements.

Art Nouveau held a fifteen-year peak in the decorative arts world. It fell out of favor with the arrival of 20th-century modernist styles.

Arts and Crafts-

The final quarter of the Victorian era, the late 1800’s, saw the entrance of machines in the field of manufacturing. It also saw the revolution against in the way of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Born in Britain it soon spread to the United States via designers like Elbert Hubbard and Gustav Stickley. The Arts and Crafts Movement itself gave birth to Craftsman and Mission designs.The Arts and Crafts Philosophy subscribed to the idea of purifying art. These artisans and philosophers believed that designs should follow the function. Simplicity and craftsmanship were highly held virtues.

Expert metalworkers like Albert Berry and Dirk van Erp found a name for themselves in this genus. Their work is still sought after and collected by Arts and Crafts devotees today. Furniture in this style is usually heavy, squared, highly functional and usually made of a sturdy hardwood like oak.

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.

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.

In today’s furniture industry the category known as case goods has expanded to include tables, headboards, etc. If the furniture item can be included in a bedroom or dining room it most likely falls in to the case good category. Since most case goods involve a framed construction solid wood is consider the best quality material, although other elements can be used, such as plastic, metal, etc.

When examining a case good for purchase it should meet three specifications:

Esthetical value

Quality of materials

Integrity of construction

ESTHETICAL VALUE

Your furniture choices should not just be trends but investments that can be used as your tastes or lifestyle progress. Amish furniture designs include every major décor trend from Mission, Craftsman, Arts and Crafts, Log Cabin, Adirondack, Lodge, Shabby Chic, Modern, Contemporary, Shaker, Traditional, to Tuscan, and on and on. The native hardwoods are available in oak, maple, cherry and walnut, including variations in each of those categories. The Amish include a spectrum of stain option topped by the almost everlasting finish known as ARESISTOVAR.

QUALITY OF MATERIAL

Ask questions of your sales team about the origin of the wood products used to create their designs. Guaranteeing that the wood was properly prepared can promise that the piece will keep its original dimensions, warding off warping and cracking.

The idea of veneer applied to cheaper wood underneath is a matter of taste but the Amish do not craft items in need of veneering. Like the Shakers the Amish believe that their fine furnishings do not need to be covered up by a faux finish in order to persuade you to buy.

INTEGRITY OF CONSTRUCTION

Understanding joint construction and how it affects the lifespan of your pieces will help you to know what to look for, too. The point at which a leg or case is joined to its other parts can determine its strength or its weakness.

Pull out drawers, look underneath and behind. Methodically examine them to see if they have been sanded and finished. This is the sign of true craftsmanship. All moving parts should fit well and move easily.

The finish should be examined in a strong light to check for even application of stain and finish. Run your hand over the surface to be sure you feel a smooth and even finish.

The Amish know their mission is to provide you with heirloom quality furniture built and stained to fit your needs. While there are many Amish furniture craftsmen available to choose from, Amish-Furniture-Home.com, and its dedicated staff, have made it their life’s work to hand select only the finest quality products built. Each piece is built to order and crafted to last generations.

Set in the midst of 93 million acres of native American timber land, by the latter half of the 1800’s Grand Rapids led the nation’s wood production. From timber used to build the West to some of America’s most beloved, if mass-produced, furniture, came from the woods of Michigan. Sawmills buzzed and churned along the Grand River, bringing the raw logs to the mills to finish. From wood to build new homes and towns to the furniture to fill them, Grand Rapids was full of entrepreneurs ready to send their products west. When the railroad came, the East also saw their share of Michigan wood products rapidly filling their home ad their needs.

From the New England states to Europe, Grand Rapids called in some of the world’s most ingenious furniture designers and crafters. In less than 40 years from the town’s creation Grand Rapids was a national resource. Not surprisingly, just within 50 years and with the showing at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Grand Rapids furniture became an international competitor.

Unlike the fine individually crafted pieces by the Amish, Grand Rapids provided less custom and more mass produced items. The price tags were low and the volume of production high. From painted pieces (hiding lower quality woods) to glued on decorative appliqués and moldings, Grand Rapids was filling the changing needs of a rapidly growing and newly industrialized society. Mail order catalogues from stores like Sears and Roebucks were filled with Grand Rapids furniture, from finished to assemble yourself.

Grand Rapids was there for the birth of the Arts and Crafts Movement, a.k.a. the American Mission style and on into the Colonial Revival period of the 1920’s. They helped evoke the stripped down Gothic & Medieval designs of Eastlake. Long before Shabby Chic was chic they were distressing fabrics, furniture – and many true antique lovers. Grand Rapids “artists” even managed to capture the essence of beautiful oak by roller “painting” on its natural grains and rays over much cheaper pine. If not for the damage caused by the Great Depression, Grand Rapids may still host the almost seventy-some furniture manufacturers it did at the turn of the 20^th Century. Grand Rapids was participant and witness to the fastest moving time in American history – all thanks to wood.