Home and Decor » recliner chair

5 Options to Living Room Seating: Sofas, Couches, Loveseats, Easy Chairs, Recliners, Ottomans, Benches, Rockers and Gliders

admin — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 04:55:11 +0000

1. The perfect sofa or couch is a welcoming sign that you are home. The most utilized and important piece of furniture you purchase besides a bed, may very well be your couch. For many young adults just starting out the couch may function as living room seating, dining room seating and bed. For more established homes the sofa is their decorating showpiece; a masterpiece of elegance and comfort. Two matching sofas, facing each other, creates a formal conversation area while one reclining couch in front of your plasma stand says relaxing comfort.

Whether you use you sofa for quiet Sunday mornings curled up with the newspaper or you are the neighborhood hotspot for the football games, investing in a well framed and well upholstered couch will provide you with years of well appointed seating as well as save you money in the long run. Beware of cardboard framed or poorly constructed sofas that need replacing every few years.

2. The loveseat is the perfect size for small living rooms or as an added seating option with a sofa. Just as in the facing sofa scenario, a smaller room looks elegant with two facing loveseats for a conversation pit. Loveseats also work great in over-sized bedrooms for a personal and cozy reading nook. A well placed love seat is the perfect spot for watching a romantic movie or just stretch out to read.

3. The easy chair or side chair is a very versatile addition to the sofa or couch. They are easily moved when space is needed or you need to rearrange a room. When paired in small places may actually work better than a larger couch. While a couch tolerates company and companionship, whether you want it or not, the easy chair is a one man or woman show.

Following the same advise on purchasing a couch is wise. One well bought chair can be used for a lifetime and re-used in other rooms of the house as tastes or styles change. Sturdy framing of the arms and back in solid wood like the Amish craft is imperative for durability. Adding an ottoman crates the perfect spot for reading or just being.

4. The recliner chair has been in development for centuries. Even in biblical times men ate in a recumbent fashion so it seems to be our nature to recline for full relaxation. There is noting more frustration and money wasting than purchasing a poorly built recliner. If the mechanisms in a recliner are not crafted extremely well it is not long before the feature begins to fail or the seating begins to lean and wobble.

The solid wood framed Morris design from the Amish still uses the concept of the great Arts and Crafts designers William Morris and Gustav Stickley. Simple rods slide to notches on a hinged back in high gauge steel. The chairs are built out of the highest quality solid native woods.

5. Of course, don’t limit yourself to sofas, couches, easy chairs, side chairs and recliners when fitting your home with seating options. Try benches or rocking chairs, especially in Adirondack or Lodge designs. Several ottomans or footstools can be used as extra seating or topped with a tray make tabletops. All Amish living room furniture is guaranteed to be a safe investment in decorating classics.

How To Relax at Home: Recliners, Bathroom Retreats and Massage

admin — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:13:49 +0000

Everyone longs for a moment, or longer, to relax but the fact is that most of us don’t really know how to reach full relaxation. Also, the irony in relaxing at spas, retreats, etc., is that the cost alone can create more stress. By setting up a home environment that is conducive to relaxing we can save money and learn to function better, be more productive and profitable and build better relationships. Room by room, using the Amish furniture available through the Northern Indiana Amish carpenters, you can create a welcoming and cost effective environment for tranquility.

RECLINERS: For centuries men have found that reclining was their favorite way to relax. From ancient biblical times, when diners actually lay down to eat around a table, to the 1800’s when mechanical furniture began to show up in homes and businesses, we have loved recliners. William Morris began producing the recliner chair that came to be known as the Morris chair during the Arts and Crafts Movement. One philosophy of this movement was to surround your self in organic, useful and beautiful simplicity. The end result was meant to be a higher quality of life in form, function and visual aesthetics.

Today Amish craftsmen from Northern Indiana custom build the world’s sturdiest and most comfortable reclining chairs and ottomans. Upholstered in high end leathers or fabrics and built in Native American hardwoods these chairs are a comfortable and comforting place to put down your worries and put up your feet. Imagine putting on some soft music, pushing back in your reclining Morris chair, putting up your weary feet in the wide ottoman stool and placing a cooling scented herbal eye cloth across your brow? Peace and tranquility are found in a chair built for a lifetime of healing your soul, one day at a time.

BATH: A bath is a quick, easy and inexpensive way to unwind. In twenty minutes you can reduce tension, energize the body, and rejuvenate your mind. By stocking a well built Amish corner cabinet or bathroom hutch with fragrant essential oils, scented or herbal bath salts and soft luxurious towels you can ensure you have on hand the makings of a very peaceful environment and your own personal spa retreat.

Inside of your Amish built corner cabinet or solid wood storage unit simply keep in stock relaxing aromas of orange, grapefruit, tangerine, rose geranium, pine, lavender, chamomile, lemongrass and basil. Bath salts are usually scented sea or Epsom salts and it is not just a myth that these salts can help to draw soreness out of muscles and joints. Believe it or not, for a luscious milk bath basic powdered milk from your grocery drink aisle works great.

Remember for optimal relaxation the bath water temperature should be between 90 and 104 degrees. When bathing in warm water remember that it is the best way to promote relaxation but it does tend to dry out skin. Always use moisturizing soaps or oils to alleviate that.

CHAIR MASSAGE: Chair massage has taken hold across America. The chair massage is so simple and easily done that kiosks have sprung up in malls everywhere for about a dollar per minute. You don’t need to run to the mall or even own a special massage chair to help out a family member with tense back and shoulder problems. If you own a well constructed Amish dining chair you can create a makeshift massage chair.

First get a comfortable pillow to place between the recipient and the back and top of chair. You want the pillow or pillows to fill the space between them and the chair and to cushion their face from the top rail. Now ask your guest to straddle the chair backwards, placing their arms to their sides. By following instructions found in books on home massage or many websites you now have a quick and inexpensive way to deliver a home chair massage using your Amish designed chair.

A Brief History of Mechanical Furniture and the Morris Recliner Chair

admin — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 03:58:10 +0000

Mechanical furniture like the Morris reclining chair have a long, interesting and well documented history thanks to great designers like William Morris and Gustav Stickley and important design authors like Sigfried Giedion. In these icon’s footsteps dedicated Amish craftsmen still produce mechanical furniture and recreate solid wood Morris chairs. The Amish Morris Chair recliners are still crafted in the hardwood style of Morris and Stickley’s Arts and Crafts Mission furniture.

London’s Great Exhibition of 1851 had been the first publicly recorded display of mechanical furniture. Here designers and industry insiders were first exposed to the convertible furniture arena of compact ship’s furniture and mechanized wheelchairs. Mechanization in the 1800’s was particularly developed for chairs and specifically for chairs that served a specific trade or task. Doctors, dentists and barbers all benefited from these inventions. From haircuts to bloodletting the mechanics of these chairs improved the ability to do business. Appointments were also created for railroad dining cars and sleeping cars. Even American designed office furniture like the “sitting chair” was benefiting from mechanization with turning and tilting features.

The reclining mechanics of the recliner chair first appeared in 1813 but would not be mass-produced for 70 years. Morris and Company began producing a recumbent chair that every furniture catalogue in the early twentieth century began to sell. William Morris was the owner of the Morris and Company firm. Contrary to popular legend he did not design the chair bearing his name.

Gustav Stickley is also credited for adapting a reclining chair in about 1901 that helped further his design career. An interesting fact about the Morris chair is its use of a very simple mechanism to help the chair recline. Morris Chairs recline using a hinged back that is supported by a simple metal rod. The rod is then moved manually from one notch to another and all notches are in a slot that is placed at the back of the arms.

Today we may take for granted the workings we have come to expect in daily lives but furniture designers and historians full understand the value of the evolution of mechanics in furniture design. Sigfried Giedion was a Bohemia-born Swiss historian and critic of architecture. He felt it was important enough to write an entire book on the subject called Mechanization Takes Command focusing on the mechanization of furniture beginning in the mid-1850s. Giedion had a conceptual influence on all American modern furniture designs in the 1950’s and his influence on that era cannot be overstated.