High-End Traditional Furniture

Furniture Design

• Most high-end traditional furniture manufacturers hire design specialists who have degrees in either industrial design or furniture design from accredited design schools. Designers create collections of furniture pieces that are similar to one another in style and materials. A collection may be an interpretation of a historic style of furniture, a completely original concept or a combination of past and present. Sometimes licenses are granted to create exact reproductions of distinctive pieces from historic homes.

Wood Selection

• High-end traditional furniture manufacturers select woods for their grain, color, sturdiness and pattern. Carvings require hardwood solids that can withstand detailed carving without cracking. Delicate veneers are created from thin slices of rare exotic woods with distinctive figures. The layers are glued to a stronger piece of background wood, either a solid or a plywood substrate. In addition to the costs of manufacturing veneers, applying them to furniture surfaces is labor-intensive, often making beautifully veneered pieces more expensive than solid wood furniture.

Craftsmanship

• The manufacture of fine furniture involves a variety of artistic craft processes. Wood carving is a subtractive sculptural process. Wood surfaces can be enhanced with veneers, inlays or marquetry. Inlays are creating by filling carved depressions in a furniture surface with colored wood pieces, metal, shell or bone to form a decorative pattern. Marquetry is similarly made by creating an entire “wood painting” with inlay and then veneering it to a furniture surface. Other decorative techniques include painting scenes in a chinoiserie style, striping accents, gilding surfaces with gold or silver leaf, and hand-tooling leather. Each of these processes requires artisans trained in a specialized skill.

Finishes

• Fine wood finishes bring out the grain and color of the wood while protecting it from damage. A variety of formulas using oils, wax, varnish, shellac and lacquer produce traditional finishes. Additional finish enhancements include staining to enrich the natural wood tones, distressing to create authentic-looking textural interest, and pickling to lighten and highlight natural wood colors.

Hardware

• The hardware on high-end traditional furniture is usually solid metal, not plated. In reproduction pieces, it is often made from castings of the original hardware.