I 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.
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.
I'm sure there is still plenty of quality furniture being made, but being on a budget in my 20s they were out of reach. I brought a lot new furniture when I brought my first home and almost all of it fell apart within 10 years, some in a matter of years. Specifically Veneered MDF would chip and would often fall apart at joins. Plastic drawer rails would snap. If a kid climbed on them they had no structural strength and would bits. The thin back panels of cabinets would come away from the body or break off and reattaching every few years.
In recent years we've instead been picking up old furniture people are getting rid of (for free) and refurbishing it. The only thing I look for is that it's made of quality materials which isn't hard to find if the furniture is 30+ years old.
I think some people don't want old furniture because it looks dated, but the nice thing about refurbishing is that you can quite easily add modern touches – or just whatever style takes your fancy. Chairs can be equipped with modern pillows and a new finish. Or old cabinets can have new door handles, hinges and a modern paint job, etc. Apart from the furniture we want to look older, I doubt most people would even realise it's all 30+ years old.
Additionally all the furniture we have now can be refurbed when we want a new look and they actually last... It's more effort for sure, but it's nothing an amateur DIYer can do with a few tools and a bit of creativity. And if you don't need them anymore (because you're moving etc) people will happily pay good money for quality refurbed furniture. What people won't buy is some crappy 10 year old Ikea cabinet.
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.
My Grandmother , 96 years old, got her Furniture from her Grandmother. That furniture is more then 100 years old and still in good condition. The downside is it sucks hard. People at that time liked good looking things that where rly uncomfortable and impractible compared to furniture today.
> 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 agree with the not-expected-to-last-ness, but I don't know about cheaper. Anecdotally, in recent years, quite a number of my friends became new home owners, and many purchased expensive furniture from big brands, which don't seem to be really all that more durable at all. They are like 10~100x times the price of an IKEA's equivalent, but marginally better in build quality. Some of them are even less well-made than IKEA. (Dining table with a surface that you can't put hot thing on, circular things that aren't perfectly circular, sofa cushions that start sinking within a year of use, etc.)
One of the couple-of-thousand table is less than two years old, and has chipped veneer, loosened screws, and is just generally flex-y and wobbly. The table top has already been replaced once, and it took 6 months for the replacement to arrive. Meanwhile, I have a nearly 10-year-old IKEA table with minor cosmetic scratches, no wobbling, nothing loose, steady, and practical.
I feel like if I ever buy a house, it will be either IKEA or custom made from someone I trust.
What I find most interesting is the pure literacy on display. This cabinetmaking instructor, admittedly a senior one, writes with more fluid grace than the average Harvard graduate today.
"At various periods during the history of this country, circumstances, and the skill of the craftsman, have combined to produce furniture and interior woodwork of distinctive styles, surviving examples of which are to be seen in museums and elsewhere. The artistic merit of much of this old work appeals to the taste of many people, who appreciate the use of its features in furniture and interiors, even in these days of novel design and ample choice."
I agree that it's nicely written. If it wasn't, we wouldn't be reading about it 85 years later. So I wouldn't draw any conclusions about the average writing competency from it (survivorship bias).
Not the author you quote, but Christopher Schwartz, who runs Lost Art Press (which printed what you quoted) can also write a heck of a wood-working book:
"The journey to the summit of Mount Vesuvius has all the romance of visiting an unlicensed reptile farms..." - opening line to _Ingenious Mechanicks_, which is a history of early workbenches.
(One thing I found fascinating about this book is that it uses religious art to infer details about workbenches, because Yeshua Bin-Maryam was thought to be a "carpenter", and medieval artists drew contemporary medieval workbenches in pictures of the child Yeshua.)
I think a lot of the style in older and modern pieces comes from the technology of the time.
Lots of those cabinets are ornate, because designing with panels allows for the growing and shrinking wood with temperature and humidity. The joints were also complicated, for the same reasons and to deal with the limitations of fasteners.
Centuries ago, if someone had duplicated an ikea design out of solid wood, it might come apart quickly because of the wood growing and shrinking, and the limits of old fasteners and simple joints.
It's ok to dislike ikea furniture, but remember that it is sophisticated in many hidden ways. The materials used are dimensionally stable, the fasteners are advanced, everything comes in a large flat boxes, and it can be assembled by most purchasers.
That said, there is some amazing furniture that has been built by hand. I also like those "hidden compartment" pieces you sometimes see.
When we first came to Australia in '91 - there was a store - "KC Country Furniture"(which is now no longer here of course)....my dad bought a 6 seat dinner table, and a large buffet for close to $3K, made out of solid teak.
Its now 2024 - and on many occassions he's mentioned to me wanting to sell this stuff, and replace it. I've argued that these are now "family heirlooms"...and that i'd be very upset if he did that.
I've refinished both of these pieces once every 2 years (once i got old enough to) Its 2024 and they have no sign of deterioration. In fact - every time i finish them - i feel pride, and marvel at the glass-like finish.
In comparison - i bought a black 4-legged table for a turntable in my studio a few years ago - and reading that it was "made with cardboard"...just made me a little sad...also considering if i took it apart it was most likely toast...made me even sadder.
Lost Art Press, it's founder Chris Schwarz, and staff are an amazing resource for woodworkers. They publish excellent books on how to do good woodworking.
> 1745-1780 Chippendale. 1760-1792 Adam. 1760-1790 Hepplewhite. 1790-1810 Sheraton.
More often George II/III, as far as I've seen in the UK, at auction for example. (Don't think I've even heard of Adam or Hepplewhite before, not that I'm big into furniture periods.)
[+] [-] tmnvix|1 year ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] showerst|1 year ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] kypro|1 year ago|reply
In recent years we've instead been picking up old furniture people are getting rid of (for free) and refurbishing it. The only thing I look for is that it's made of quality materials which isn't hard to find if the furniture is 30+ years old.
I think some people don't want old furniture because it looks dated, but the nice thing about refurbishing is that you can quite easily add modern touches – or just whatever style takes your fancy. Chairs can be equipped with modern pillows and a new finish. Or old cabinets can have new door handles, hinges and a modern paint job, etc. Apart from the furniture we want to look older, I doubt most people would even realise it's all 30+ years old.
Additionally all the furniture we have now can be refurbed when we want a new look and they actually last... It's more effort for sure, but it's nothing an amateur DIYer can do with a few tools and a bit of creativity. And if you don't need them anymore (because you're moving etc) people will happily pay good money for quality refurbed furniture. What people won't buy is some crappy 10 year old Ikea cabinet.
[+] [-] TylerE|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Naijoko|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] powersnail|1 year ago|reply
I agree with the not-expected-to-last-ness, but I don't know about cheaper. Anecdotally, in recent years, quite a number of my friends became new home owners, and many purchased expensive furniture from big brands, which don't seem to be really all that more durable at all. They are like 10~100x times the price of an IKEA's equivalent, but marginally better in build quality. Some of them are even less well-made than IKEA. (Dining table with a surface that you can't put hot thing on, circular things that aren't perfectly circular, sofa cushions that start sinking within a year of use, etc.)
One of the couple-of-thousand table is less than two years old, and has chipped veneer, loosened screws, and is just generally flex-y and wobbly. The table top has already been replaced once, and it took 6 months for the replacement to arrive. Meanwhile, I have a nearly 10-year-old IKEA table with minor cosmetic scratches, no wobbling, nothing loose, steady, and practical.
I feel like if I ever buy a house, it will be either IKEA or custom made from someone I trust.
[+] [-] qq66|1 year ago|reply
"At various periods during the history of this country, circumstances, and the skill of the craftsman, have combined to produce furniture and interior woodwork of distinctive styles, surviving examples of which are to be seen in museums and elsewhere. The artistic merit of much of this old work appeals to the taste of many people, who appreciate the use of its features in furniture and interiors, even in these days of novel design and ample choice."
[+] [-] morsch|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] pliftkl|1 year ago|reply
"The journey to the summit of Mount Vesuvius has all the romance of visiting an unlicensed reptile farms..." - opening line to _Ingenious Mechanicks_, which is a history of early workbenches.
(One thing I found fascinating about this book is that it uses religious art to infer details about workbenches, because Yeshua Bin-Maryam was thought to be a "carpenter", and medieval artists drew contemporary medieval workbenches in pictures of the child Yeshua.)
[+] [-] m463|1 year ago|reply
Lots of those cabinets are ornate, because designing with panels allows for the growing and shrinking wood with temperature and humidity. The joints were also complicated, for the same reasons and to deal with the limitations of fasteners.
Centuries ago, if someone had duplicated an ikea design out of solid wood, it might come apart quickly because of the wood growing and shrinking, and the limits of old fasteners and simple joints.
It's ok to dislike ikea furniture, but remember that it is sophisticated in many hidden ways. The materials used are dimensionally stable, the fasteners are advanced, everything comes in a large flat boxes, and it can be assembled by most purchasers.
That said, there is some amazing furniture that has been built by hand. I also like those "hidden compartment" pieces you sometimes see.
[+] [-] an_aparallel|1 year ago|reply
Its now 2024 - and on many occassions he's mentioned to me wanting to sell this stuff, and replace it. I've argued that these are now "family heirlooms"...and that i'd be very upset if he did that.
I've refinished both of these pieces once every 2 years (once i got old enough to) Its 2024 and they have no sign of deterioration. In fact - every time i finish them - i feel pride, and marvel at the glass-like finish.
In comparison - i bought a black 4-legged table for a turntable in my studio a few years ago - and reading that it was "made with cardboard"...just made me a little sad...also considering if i took it apart it was most likely toast...made me even sadder.
[+] [-] krunck|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] wlesieutre|1 year ago|reply
https://lostartpress.com/products/the-anarchists-workbench
https://lostartpress.com/products/the-anarchists-tool-chest
https://lostartpress.com/products/the-anarchists-design-book
[+] [-] readingnews|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] OJFord|1 year ago|reply
More often George II/III, as far as I've seen in the UK, at auction for example. (Don't think I've even heard of Adam or Hepplewhite before, not that I'm big into furniture periods.)