SINCE the small house and apartment have become the rule instead of the exception, many of the dining rooms in our modern country or suburban homes and in our larger cities are of such limited proportions that the task of finding suitable furnishings has become a difficult problem. The old conventional and ponderous ten-piece dining room suite is wholly unsuited to its newer and smaller quarters and is especially out of place when the dining room is combined with the living room, as is often the plan now.

Fortunately many of the manufacturers are placing on the market good and far more attractive designs in dining room furniture, intended to be used in small rooms, and house-wives are gradually seeing the wisdom of furnishing with the more interesting odd pieces—the gate-leg or drop-leaf tables, and rush-seated Windsor or ladder-back chairs, and in place of the bulky buffet or side-board the more graceful console, which can be used both as sideboard and serving table. The built-in china closet of beautiful and simple design, with the drawer for silver and the cupboard space beneath for the linen, serving trays and other dining room accessories in daily use, solves the sideboard problem in the best way for the small house and is in perfect harmony with the room itself, forming a decorative addition of real architectural value.

It is not always easy for the inexperienced house furnisher to choose among all the various designs and periods of dining room furniture just that group of pieces which will fit into his own home and be in harmony with the rest of the furnishings and with the atmosphere of his particular place. It is comparatively easy, however, to learn to distinguish between the furniture that is well designed and that which is poorly made; to know something of the period styles and be able to tell the difference between Chippendale, Sheraton, Jacobean and Heppelwhite furniture.

It is best always to try to imagine the various pieces as they would appear in the dining room in which they are to be placed; if the house is distinctly Colonial in feeling we would naturally choose Colonial furniture or designs interpreted in mahogany, such as Queen Anne, Chippendale or Adam. Some of the antique or modern painted pieces could be used if the simpler and less ornate designs are chosen. The choice of mahogany chairs modeled upon the Sheraton design, with the straight lines generally employed in this style and the typical arm support gracefully extended was a happy one to fit in with the gate-leg table of the same wood and the mahogany bureau desk.

Part 1 of a 1924 magazine article on choosing Dining Room Furniture

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 at 10:43 am and is filed under Furniture, Interior Decoration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments and pings are closed.

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