Current Furniture Trends & Fads

Current Trends in Furniture

& The Latest Fads

I’m often amazed by some of the current trends in furniture & the latest fad of distressed painted ‘antique’ furniture provides a classic example of how easily people are fooled by unscrupulous antique dealers.

I’ve got nothing against antique distressed painted furniture; in fact some of these original pieces have a lot of charm & some amazing colouration. What really annoys me is the large amount of fakes out there. It’s really difficult to make a new polished wooden item look antique, but the opposite is true with painted furniture. All you have to do is apply several layers of paint, then scratch & rub through the paintwork at different levels, dirty up the insides & then you have an antique looking piece of furniture. I see them everywhere. The other thing that some antique dealers do is to rip the veneers off an old Continental chest & then give it a good paint job.
I wouldn’t mind, but people are paying amazingly high prices for these items & in a few years time, when the ‘distressed painted look’ goes completely out of fashion, these pieces will be absolutely worthless! 

That is the beauty of antique brown furniture. It will always be a good investment as long as it’s a nice looking practical piece & is purchased for the right price. Right now, this sort of furniture can be bought for really good prices, because there was a drop in prices a few years or so. I’ve been in the antique business for over 30 years now & this is the first time prices have dropped. They are already starting to move up again, so take advantage while you can.

Church Street Antiques

https://www.maryleboneantiques.co.uk/

The Interesting Thing About The Antique Business

https://www.maryleboneantiques.co.uk/

The interesting thing about the antique business is that there are many different articles being sold at many different levels. Taking the furniture angle alone, there are many different levels at which it is being sold. In the future I will be giving you advice on different ways of finding, checking out & buying antique furniture, without having to over pay or get ripped off.

The kind of antique furniture I sell is basically affordable & functional. I'm not too bothered about datelines. The item doesn't have to be over 100 years old to be a good piece of furniture. For instance, some Victorian furniture can be very poorly made, whilst some 1950's pieces can be of amazing quality. You can buy a cheap quality inlaid mahogany Edwardian bureau bookcase for £750 or pay £1500 for a top quality 1950's example, which would be the one I would always buy. The value of both items might go up at a similar percentage, but the 50's bureau bookcase has got to be the better investment. To be honest, most items that I sell are at the common sense buying, price level. Just compare what you would have to pay for the modern day equivalent in the stores today. Not only would you pay more for the new equivalent, but it would be far inferior in quality, with a massive loss in value as soon as you purchase it. More importantly, it won't look as good, with no character & it certainly will not last as long.

Most of the new furniture, being sold these days, is spray polished. That normally means that when scratched, the polish can just peal off & is difficult to polish over. I don't really want to get too technical right now, because I'd like to save that for another article in the future, regarding restoration & polishing. What I am really trying to say is, it's far better to buy the older piece of furniture, providing it's well made, than the new equivalent.

The only cheap reproduction furniture available these days, is the nasty overseas spray polished imports from Indonesia & other Far East countries. The main problem with these items is, besides being absolutely worthless as soon as they are purchased, the wood is never seasoned, so it starts splitting & warping in different room temperatures. Did you know that once the wood is cut from the tree, it needs to be left to dry out for many years, or be kiln dried; otherwise it will split & warp.

The main point I am trying to make is, wherever possible, if you have the choice, steer away from new reproduction furniture, in favour of older equivalents. As long as they are over 40 years, the quality, character & resale value will be much better.

http://www.churchstreetantiques.net/



Specialist Article by Stuart Shuster

https://www.maryleboneantiques.co.uk/

Specialist Article by Stuart Shuster

As most of you will know, my shop is in Church Street, London, NW8 8ED. I have been trading there for about 32 years & have seen many changes myself. In fact, I am now the oldest individual shop here & unfortunately, probably the oldest dealer in the street. 

 Church Street is quite renowned for antiques, trendy furniture & decorative items. We have Alfie's Antique Market & many other shops in the street, all of who make it a very attractive venue. The location is also very convenient, with Marylebone, Edgware Road & Baker Street train stations nearby - plus, we are not in the Congestion Charge Zone & there is easy & cheap parking in the street. There is also a very reasonable car park nearby for about £2 an hour.

Unfortunately, amongst the original items, there are quite a few brand new items & some of them are being passed off as original by unscrupulous dealers. You will find this happens in all areas of the country & online too. 

I don’t have any problem with dealers selling these items, but I do hate it when they are being passed off as original. It also gives the street a bad name. What happens is that a very small minority represent the items as old & original by clever marketing methods. Often they will mix new items in with old items so you don’t notice.

 There is a very simple way to protect yourselves from making the mistake of buying something new & often mass produced. 

All you need to do is ask for a written receipt, stating the age of the item & the same if buying online. If they are a reputable dealer, then they will have no problem with that. If they won’t give you that, then don’t buy.

I wouldn’t worry so much about whether it’s 1950’s, 1930’s, 1910, 1860’s, etc. As long as there’s a rough dateline, you will know if it’s new or not.
Actually, online is more worrying for misrepresentation, but again it’s very easy to protect yourselves. Just ask the relevant dealer if the item is new or roughly how old. Look out for long vivid descriptions about the original maker or designer, which are often copied out of wikipedia or something like that. These are often put in there to impress you & divert you from the actual age of the piece.

Please be aware that most of the dealers in the antiques trade are honest & genuine people, but as always the minority can give us all a bad name.

So, once again, don’t be afraid to ask the obvious question about the age. 

Regards, Stuart

http://www.churchstreetantiques.net/



ADVICE ON BUYING TRADITIONAL LEATHER UPHOLSTERED FURNITURE

https://www.maryleboneantiques.co.uk/

 

ADVICE ON BUYING TRADITIONAL LEATHER UPHOLSTERED FURNITURE

http://www.churchstreetantiques.net/

When it comes to buying antique or reproduction leather items, there is a lot of choice out there & you should be aware of many factors to take into consideration.

For instance, you can pay £500 - £10,000 for a new leather chesterfield.

For £500 you will get absolute rubbish. It won’t have proper springs. It will have cheap foam innards & the pre-dyed leather will be bad quality or even this kind of leather coated vinyl they are promoting today.

You will need to pay something in the region of £5,000 plus to get anything approaching what I call good quality & even then it probably won’t have coil springs, sprung backs or be hand coloured. It certainly won’t have the naturally distressed character look of the old ones that I sell.

Most of all these new or cheap second-hand ones won’t hold their value & more importantly, won’t last very long.

This same theory applies to any leather items such as armchairs, stools, sofas, etc.

Over the last few years I’ve been specializing in leather upholstered furniture with lots of character & if you take a look at my sold items you will notice many of them.

I do have some very nice leather items on the website, which is why I decided to feature leather on this newsletter.

Check out the Chesterfield, which does have matching armchairs. This piece is wonderful quality, with soft leather.  It’s very comfortable, with a sprung edge & is even sprung on the back.  At £1950+vat I think it’s an absolute bargain. It’s about 50-60 years old & must have been very
expensive when it was made.  It has been revived & polished, so everything is ship shape. This Chesterfield will last a lifetime & is basically what I was talking about above.
http://www.churchstreetantiques.net/antique_victorian_style_leather_chesterfield_sofa_13

Besides the Chesterfield, the other new leather items include a
Porters Chair, a Large Stool/Coffee Table, a Pair of Gainsborough
Chairs, a Wing Chair & a few other leather items that have been on the
site for a bit longer. I think the Pair of Leather Wing Armchairs are now sold, but hopefully I will get more pairs in the future.

Regards, Stuart.

http://www.churchstreetantiques.net/