Fun Furniture Fact

Fun Furniture Fact #21: Gilbert Rohde for Herman Miller Dresser

The busy life of a New Yorker means making lots of decisions prior to even stepping out your front door. The decision of what to wear carries obvious importance, and therefore, choosing the right dresser as the proper home for our clothing deserves some serious consideration.

We recently got in this mighty fine 5-drawer dresser designed by Gilbert Rohde for Herman Miller; it features brass drawer pulls, flared legs and a two-tone body with a light wood front. The drawers pull out smoothly and the top drawer contains a center divider; a big plus for the meticulous organizer.

(To read more about wear and condition, please refer to the product page)

Founded in 1905, Herman Miller, an American-based furniture production company, soared to fame in the 1940s with collaborations involving many talented designers such as Isamu Noguchi, George Nelson, and Ray and Charles Eames. The company produced pieces that would later become definitive examples of industrial design. By the middle of the 20th century, Herman Miller was synonymous with “Modern” furniture.

In 1931, Gilbert Rohde, considered a vivacious modernist himself, attracted the interest of Herman Miller and he soon began designing for the company. His designs combine the form and ornamentation reminiscent of the Art Deco style with the rationalism from Bauhaus design, while still maintaining a sense of simplicity.

While Rohde designed for several other furniture manufacturers like Heywood Wakefield, Widdicomb Company, and the Troy Sunshade Company, his work for Herman Miller remains his best work and is considered some of the best work of the period.

Fun Furniture Fact #20: Barrel Chair Break Down

Posted on November 4, 2016 at 12:24 pm by Furnish Green / Fun Furniture Fact, Uncategorized

If you’re like us, chances are you love a good barrel chair! This classic accent chair is sure to offer some real charm and comfort. The true start of the barrel chair remains hazy, as various sources site its location of origin to be in places including the United Kingdom, the Virgin Islands, Italy, and France. One thing that remains certain is that the well-constructed design was in use around the world by the mid to late 19th century and enjoyed a great deal of popularity in the United States during the middle of the 20th century.

The barrel chair is a style of seating that is traditionally upholstered with arms and back forming a continuous line. If you haven’t guessed it yet, it is constructed to resemble the shape of, and is often repurposed from, an old-fashioned whiskey barrel! One side of the round construction is cut out to make room for the seat and back padding that forms a comfortable nook, surrounded with a high contoured back and a swiveling base. These chairs make an efficient use of space with their relatively small footprint that is contrasted by their big personality.

FAMILY ROOM FURNITURE that’s really designed for FAMILY FUN! With so many things going on outside the home these days, keeping the family together for work, and play, is harder than ever. You do need to give special attention to your home so see that it is really designed for family living. Formal and fussy furnishing are fine for company . . . but for the kids and dad to really relax . . . well, you need something like this family room suite from BROTHERS of Kentucky. Built for fun, built for comfort, built to last! Don’t wonder where the kids are … they’ll be having fun at home. – The Daily News from Port Angeles, Washington. Page 30. April 20, 1975.

barrelchair

In the showroom, we’ve got some unique barrel chairs of our own for sale. These ones, in particular, were manufactured in the 1970s by Brothers Furniture and Corp. and were constructed from Kentucky whiskey keg barrels! Fun and punchy, they feature colorful patchwork vinyl upholstery. Whether solo or as a set, they’ll add some rustic charm to any living space or bar.

Fun Furniture Fact #19: Tobia Scarpa and the Coronado Armchair

Posted on August 10, 2016 at 5:20 pm by Furnish Green / Fun Furniture Fact

Tobia Scarpa

From their first collaborations as husband and wife in the middle 1950s until the present day, no other designers have spoken as completely and as articulately in single furniture offerings. Each piece, whether their Biagio table lamp for Flos, their Bastiano seating range for Knoll or their Centenary vases for L’eclaireur, simultaneously addresses history, industrial production, form, function, materials and contemporary cultures. – Matthew Sullivan of Core77

Tobia Scarpa, son of the influential Italian architect Carlo Scarpa, graduated from the Instituto Universitario di Architettura in Venice in the late 1950s, where he met his wife, Afra Blanchin. Together they collaborated on design projects and built a career working for nearly every major international design company including Flos, Cassina, Knoll and B&B.
Their design work ranged from full scale architectural projects such as factories, shops and offices created for Benetton to everyday household items including art, glass, clothing and furniture.

Tobia and Afra were innovators of their time because of their consciousness to produce functional pieces with a poetic, amalgamative and polished design. While they used modern materials and procedures to create their products, their designs were more classical than the ones being produced by their peers during that time. This influenced the way people furnished their homes as residents wanted furniture that stood in perfect harmony with modern and traditional interiors alike.

In 1966 Scarpa designed the “Coronado” series of armchairs for B&B Italia which became one of the best selling pieces of its time and to this day is considered one of the couple’s most notable works. The Coronado chair was one of the first padded pieces of furniture to use the new cold-molded foaming process in which a metal structure could be sunk within the polyurethane padding. It offers great comfort thanks to a spring system made of steel music wire strips incorporated into the backrest. With its fine traditional design, Coronado is a “classic” armchair that embodies the very nature of relaxation.

From the couple’s first collaborations as husband and wife in the mid-1950s to the present day, their pieces have incorporated new technologies, while still maintaining a sense of history, form and function. Their work can be found in museums across the United States and Europe, including collections in MoMA and the Lourve Museum.

To own your very own piece of history in fine design, check out Furnish Green’s very own Tobia Scarpa Coronado Chair!

Furniture Fact #18: Crotch Walnut

Posted on July 28, 2016 at 5:22 pm by Furnish Green / Fun Furniture Fact

Crotch Walnut

Here at Furnish Green, we come by many beautiful pieces of furniture crafted from a wide variety of wood species. Many factors make a piece special (aside from the fact that it has already stood the test of time), including design style or time period of origin, but the wood grain detail is often a distinctive feature. Therefore, I would like to introduce you to crotch walnut wood grain!

Crotch walnut comes about at the point where a branch intersects with a tree’s trunk and/or when there is a double trunk. In this region there is limited space for the tree to grow. With each year of growth, another annual ring of thickness is added; as wood pushes against wood, the grain starts to buckle in different directions. Wood fibers weave together to strengthen the limbs or branches, forming the crotch and feather appearance.This beautiful distortion rewards us with a grain that shimmers in the light and looks like waves of liquid.

A wonderful Furnish Green example can be seen in our recently sold ~~1930s Crotch Walnut Chifferobe~~ (featured in the image above). This piece displays fine carved wood detail accompanying mother nature’s art of the crotch walnut wood grain along the doors.

Check out another example of some FG crotch walnut in coffee table form here!

To read more about the process of the crotch walnut check out these articles:

Wood Magazine | A Woodworker’s Musings

Fun Furniture Fact #17: Brown-Saltman

Posted on April 26, 2016 at 4:33 pm by Furnish Green / Fun Furniture Fact

b_saltman

In 1941, Brown-Saltman’s first pieces were based on [Paul] Frankl’s designs, with a few minor adjustments making them adaptable to mass production (onekingslane.com).

So we had this very interesting coffee table in our showroom recently, and we just received a pair of beautiful mid century end tables that all happen to be connected to some noteworthy names in furniture design. Since our inventory is not heavy on high-end designer pieces, I usually like to do a bit of digging around to better understand the higher price-point attached to these sorts of items.

Brown-Saltman was a collaboration between Dave Saltman and Paul Frankl, a leader in American Art Deco design. Frankl created the “Skyscraper” furniture that was made to resemble the increasingly Art Deco skyline of New York City. Although Frankl had some valued big-Hollywood customers, by the 1930s he became interested in the opportunity to distribute his designs to the masses.

The Brown-Saltman partnership began in 1941 and was instantly successful. Certain more expensive features were eliminated in order to attain the lower price point. Most often, the pieces were constructed using soft woods or Weldtex, a combed wood, plywood laminate invented by Donald Deskey. With original Frankl designs now geared toward mass production, there was no slowing them down.

Or so it seemed… In 1942, only the day after signing an extended contract with Frankl, Saltman died in a car accident. The original momentum diminished, and although Frankl continued with the business for a bit longer, it did not last. Although short-lived, the collaboration left behind some innovative and lasting designs.

We’re particularly loving these end tables.

Fun Furniture Fact # 16: Art Deco

Posted on January 21, 2016 at 9:04 pm by Furnish Green / Fun Furniture Fact

The term art deco derives from the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs Industriels et Modernes, held in Paris. The show was organized by an association of French artists known as, La Societe des Artistes Decorateurs (society of decorator artists). – visual-arts-cork.com

This winter the Furnish Green showroom has been lush with some truly arresting Art Deco pieces. Naturally, the pieces populating our shop have propelled us to ponder some prevalent aspects of the Deco movement.

After its introduction in 1925 the Art Deco movement quickly rose to international prominence in a multitude of design mediums ranging from architecture to jewelry.
In regards to furniture, the Deco style features distinguishing characteristics that include the lines and shapes, wood inlays and veneer styles, and the hardware.

IMG_deco_knobs
Art Deco hardware design is a consistently dazzling detail. The variety of hardware designs for simple drawer pulls is remarkable. They range from minimal and industrial to lavishly ornate, but are unified by being based on this or that simple shape, thus meshing with the simple overall shape of the whole piece. This simplicity of shape serves as a stark contrast to the Art Nouveau movement which Deco succeeded. Hardware was made from newly available materials of the time including aluminum, stainless steel and often bakelite (an early form of plastic).

Much of the beauty of Art Deco furniture emanates from the wood itself. Many pieces feature veneers of burled wood grain or crotch walnut grain detail. These veneer types offer a more organic array of lines and shapes then the traditional hard parallel lines found in most wood grains. These ethereal shapes play against the hard angles and basic shapes that comprise the overall piece. Combined with the movement’s penchant for applying veneers symmetrically, the result is a mesmerizing Rorshach-like set of abstract reflections that one can get lost in (should it be one’s druthers).

Our favorite Art Deco piece that resides in the showroom today is this amazing vanity with a full length mirror, an unexpected series of drawers in which shapes and sizes are determined by the uniquely asymmetrical cascading shape of the overall piece, and lastly but not leastly, THE ULTIMATE: a cute yet saucy built-in lamp!

This vanity displays some classic Deco cut-out details on both the mirror frame and body of the piece (as shown above).

By the 1940s the movement started to fade, as it was deemed too ostentatious for wartime aesthetics.

One last note: during its heyday, the term Art Deco was seldom used. It wasn’t until 1968 when Bevis Hillier’s book Art Deco of the 20s and 30s that the term ‘Art Deco’ became commonly used.

Check out our entire Art Deco collection here.

Fun Furniture Fact #15: Kem Weber

Posted on November 20, 2015 at 8:00 pm by Furnish Green / Fun Furniture Fact

Karl Emanuel Martin Weber, a key player in the introduction of American Modernism on the West Coast, laid the groundwork for the casual California modernism of the 1950s and 1960s.

Weber, originally from Germany, traveled to San Francisco in 1914 for a building project and was stranded in the United States at the onset of WWI. After struggling to find work, he went on to work as a designer for Barker Brothers. However, his main success came as he began designing tubular steel seating for Lloyd Manufacturing Company in the mid 1930s.

These pieces, Weber told a reporter, were intended not only to be comfortable to sit in and use: “It is a matter, as well, of harmonizing lines and low, restful tones, and a sensation of unlimited space even in a small room.” He explained further, “I have studied how people behave, how they live when they are at home. I am interested in structural principles, not in the application of ornament.”

The sleek curving metal structure is both visually appealing and comfortable. His designs are modern and lasting, and personally, we love them!

Fun Furniture Fact #14: The Roycrofters

Posted on November 2, 2015 at 3:09 pm by Furnish Green / Fun Furniture Fact

The Roycrofters and the Arts & Crafts Movement

”The Roycroft Community was in existence from 1894 to 1938, and produced some of the finest hand-crafted furniture, books, lamps and metal work of the Arts and Crafts Movement.”

The recent arrival of an original Gustav Stickley piece in our showroom spurred some interest in the Arts and Crafts movement and specifically, the Roycroft Community.

The Arts and Crafts movement was a reaction against the tastes of the Victorian era and the machine-made products of the Industrial Revolution. The Roycroft community was an embodiment of the Movement’s ideals.

Intrigued? Read on!

“The Roycroft Community, 1894-1938” by Hilary Davis

“The high quality and unique artistry of the Roycroft creations made them very popular. But it was the business acumen and charismatic personality of its founder, Elbert Hubbard, that made Roycroft one of the most successful artistic enterprises of the Arts and Crafts era…

He was intrigued by the philosophy of the Arts and Crafts Movement and went to England to visit William Morris and his Kelmscott Press. Hubbard returned to East Aurora in 1894 where he set up a print shop and published a magazine called “The Philistine” which contained his interpretations of the craftsman ideals. The magazine, along with other philosophical pamphlets and publications, became popular and helped to bring Hubbard and the Roycroft community to national attention while supporting their activities at the same time…

As Roycroft grew, Hubbard set up a community that was to be self-sufficient, based on pre-industrial agrarian ideals where artisans and their families lived and worked in healthy, idyllic conditions. Housing was provided in the form of Bungalows in the craftsman style. In the small shops, the emphasis was on hand-crafted items. The artisans worked in their own areas of expertise but were encouraged to apprentice themselves to other craftsmen to develop new skills. Pay was low but this was offset by the living and working conditions and the opportunity for creative artistic expression…

The success of the Roycroft community began to decline when Elbert Hubbard and his wife died on the Lusitania in 1915. Their son, Bert, managed to continue the business and even succeeded in getting some of the major department stores like Sears to carry the Roycroft furniture line. But the Great Depression and the general loss of interest by the public sealed the fate of the Roycrofters and the business was sold at auction in 1938. It continued at a much reduced capacity under several owners until it finally went bankrupt in 1987″ (Hilary Davis, http://www.arts-crafts.com/archive/hdavis.shtml).

Fun Furniture Fact #13: Edmond Spence

Posted on October 21, 2015 at 4:48 pm by Furnish Green / Fun Furniture Fact

Although he was somewhat forgotten over the years, his name has resurfaced and is now one of the most recognizable names in mid century design.

Edmond Spence was an American designer who distinguished himself by adopting the Danish Modern style and seamlessly combining it with atomic influences. Most of his work is from the early to late 1950s and contains Art Deco and tiki elements of design while staying true to the sleek lines and angles of Danish and atomic styles.

His designs were produced by some Swedish and Mexican manufacturers and are now rather sought after by Mid Century Modern and Danish Modern enthusiasts.

Check out our current selection: Edmond Spence Bedroom

Fun Furniture Fact #12: Billy Beer

Posted on September 28, 2015 at 10:45 pm by Furnish Green / Fun Furniture Fact

In 1977, Falls City Brewing Company approached the country’s most visible drunken redneck, Billy Carter, about forming a partnership to help the company out of its slump—Thus creating Billy Beer.

Okay, so Billy Beer isn’t really a piece of furniture, but it’s got a pretty interesting history so we wanted to share. The gist of it:

By the late 70s, Billy Carter, Jimmy Carter’s younger brother, had been deemed a “professional redneck” and was known for his strong affinity for beer. As his buffoonish notoriety rose, the popularity of the Falls City brewing company was on a decline. A partnership between the two made sense in its mutually beneficial nature; the company would be represented by a well-known drunken society figure and Billy would drink for free, and get paid to do it.

Each can features Billy’s signature and his claim, “I had this beer brewed just for me. It’s the best beer I’ve ever tasted. And I’ve tasted a lot.” It all sounds very promising… However, the beer failed and so did Falls City.

These beer cans aren’t rare, but they do have a funny story associated with them.

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Latest Posts

Fun Furniture Fact #21: Gilbert Rohde for Herman Miller Dresser

Fun Furniture Fact #20: Barrel Chair Break Down

Fun Furniture Fact #19: Tobia Scarpa and the Coronado Armchair

Furniture Fact #18: Crotch Walnut

Fun Furniture Fact #17: Brown-Saltman

Fun Furniture Fact # 16: Art Deco

Fun Furniture Fact #15: Kem Weber

Karl Emanuel Martin Weber, a key player in the introduction of American Modernism on the West Coast, laid the groundwork for the casual California modernism of the 1950s and 1960s.

Fun Furniture Fact #14: The Roycrofters

The Roycrofters and the Arts & Crafts Movement

”The Roycroft Community was in existence from 1894 to 1938, and produced some of the finest hand-crafted furniture, books, lamps and metal work of the Arts and Crafts Movement.”

“The high quality and unique artistry of the Roycroft creations made them very popular. But it was the business acumen and charismatic personality of its founder, Elbert Hubbard, that made Roycroft one of the most successful artistic enterprises of the Arts and Crafts era…

Fun Furniture Fact #13: Edmond Spence

Although he was somewhat forgotten over the years, his name has resurfaced and is now one of the most recognizable names in mid century design.

Fun Furniture Fact #12: Billy Beer

In 1977, Falls City Brewing Company approached the country’s most visible drunken redneck, Billy Carter, about forming a partnership to help the company out of its slump—Thus creating Billy Beer.

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Karl Emanuel Martin Weber, a key player in the introduction of American Modernism on the West Coast, laid the groundwork for the casual California modernism of the 1950s and 1960s.

The Roycrofters and the Arts & Crafts Movement

”The Roycroft Community was in existence from 1894 to 1938, and produced some of the finest hand-crafted furniture, books, lamps and metal work of the Arts and Crafts Movement.”

“The high quality and unique artistry of the Roycroft creations made them very popular. But it was the business acumen and charismatic personality of its founder, Elbert Hubbard, that made Roycroft one of the most successful artistic enterprises of the Arts and Crafts era…

Although he was somewhat forgotten over the years, his name has resurfaced and is now one of the most recognizable names in mid century design.

In 1977, Falls City Brewing Company approached the country’s most visible drunken redneck, Billy Carter, about forming a partnership to help the company out of its slump—Thus creating Billy Beer.

Visit Us

About Us

NEWSLETTER

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”The Roycroft Community was in existence from 1894 to 1938, and produced some of the finest hand-crafted furniture, books, lamps and metal work of the Arts and Crafts Movement.”