Table (furniture)

“ The dining-room table should be a modern extension table with heavy, turned legs, which would of course be repeated in the sideboard, serving-table and chairs. This type of furniture depends entirely for its beauty upon its plain sturdy lines and simple turnings. The chairs should have leather seats and backs, studded with copper nails. The brasses of the fireplace should be of odd design, and the electric lights and fixtures should be of old brass to add a touch of color to the dark wood finish. ”

“ Well! it was almost as bad in the old days, when we had large round tables in our drawing-rooms; and one of the great achievements of modern—I mean quite recent—times has been the bundling of that old rosewood table out. That gone, the rest of the furniture gets together into comfortable groups, and everything finds its place. Before, all were overawed and sent to the wall in deference to the round table.
A word or two is due to the chest of drawers. ”

“ Tall standing candlesticks of metal are also used, and are moved about the room at pleasure. The illumination is also helped by means of small mirrors, with frames carved and gilt, or else made of ebony or olive-wood.
The furniture consists of one large table, several small round or oval tables, side tables, chairs, settee, couch, stools, a “court,” or “livery cupboard” (and sometimes both) , a screen, cabinets, chests, and coffers; while the decorations are pictures, antlers, armour, vases and other ornaments of porcelain, gold, silver, or pewter, and table-clocks. ”

“ Apart from its cloth and cushions, a table requires no special care beyond treating it similarly to any other piece of furniture, by keeping its framework clean and occasionally applying polish, which can be had of almost any furniture-dealer. ”

“ A greenish paper covered the walls, and a low, little iron bedstead, the head of which formed a kind of shelf, stood in one corner; a stove, fixed in the chimney-place, was surrounded by an iron grating, which forbade a near approach; a table fastened to the wall, a chair placed before this table, and also clamped to the floor, a mahogany chest of drawers, and a rush bottomed armchair completed the scanty furniture. The curtainless window was furnished on the inside with an iron grating, which served to protect the panes from being broken. ”

“ Kitchen Furniture.—In making selection for the kitchen with distempered walls and bare floor, strength and durability are the chief points to be considered. The centre table is the most important article of furniture; it should be as large as the kitchen will conveniently allow ”

“ The dining-room is decorated in stucco, or painted in imitation of marble. The furniture is mahogany. The chairs are covered with leather. The window-curtains are of “Persian” taffeta, cloth or cotton, trimmed with ball fringe. The dining-table is round or oval, and is often supported on the pillar-and-claw.
The dining-room table also is round, and stands on four feet decorated with lions’ heads or chimæras; or again it is supported by the pillar-and-claw. The drawing-room table is frequently finished with a marble top, or it is covered with a cloth. ”

“ Besides the benches by the fireside and the bed, the only piece of furniture in the room was a coarse wooden table, with a loaf of black bread, a knife, and a pitcher of cider placed on it. Old nets, coils of rope, tattered sails, hung, about the walls and over the wooden partition which separated the room into two compartments. ”

“ The gate-leg table, which originated in the oaken period, is dealt with in Volume I.; and no doubt in many parts of the country it continued to be made in oak, but it does not appear ever to have become popular in walnut, which, after all, was never a wood in general use in country districts. Fashion has a strong controlling influence over furniture, as it has over so many other matters of taste. The table with cabriole legs came into fashion, and immediately cabriole legs in some form or other became de rigueur. ”

“ Make the best of the opportunities offered for built-in furniture before you buy another thing. If you have a built-in china closet in your dining-room, you can plan a graceful built-in console-table to serve as a buffet or serving-table, and you will require only a good table—not too heavily built—and a few chairs for this room. There is rarely a room that would not be improved by built-in shelves and inset mirrors. ”

“ Typical drawing-room tables are shown on Plate XLIII. It is very rarely that a table of gilded wood is met with in a drawing-room or petit salon. Solid or veneered tables of rosewood, amaranth, violet-wood or mahogany, decorated with brass-work or gilded copper, are the favourites. Sometimes the top consists of a marble slab, and sometimes a square of velvet or cloth is framed in a border of wood ornamented with a metal moulding ”

“ Side lights (adding candles for grace and charm) are far pleasanter to the eyes and look better.
In the dining room the table is the dominating furniture note. A round table, an oblong table or a square table may be the more desirable according to the shape of the room. But a round dining table may be harmonized with an oblong dining room by means of an oblong rug, with rounded medallion, by a round flower bowl, a round tray or even the wheels of the tea table. In the dining room, as elsewhere, repetition in color establishes the color tone of the room. ”

“ A rude table, two or three empty cracker-boxes from the trader’s store for chairs, and a rough bench or two, is about all the furniture ever seen in a barrabkie. The table-ware and household utensils do not require a large cupboard for their reception. ”

“ No fire is burning and the grate is banked with flowers. When the dining-room door is opened, a sideboard and a side-table are seen in the further room, upon which are dishes of fruit, an array of ice-plates and finger-bowls, liqueurs in decanters, glasses, silver, etc.
The pictures, the ornaments upon the mantelpiece, and the articles of furniture are few but choice. A high-backed settee stands on the right of the fireplace; near the settee is a fauteuil-stool; facing the settee is a Charles II arm-chair. On the left of the room there is a small table with a chair beside it ”

“ One or two pieces of painted furniture may be used in a room with other furniture if they happen to be just the thing needed to complete the scheme. A console table, for instance, with a mirror over it and sidelights, might be just the touch needed between two windows hung with plain taffeta curtains. Like all good things there must be restraint in using it, but there are few things that have greater possibilities than painted furniture when properly used. ”

“ In furnishing a conservatory or porch breakfast room, it is best to use some variety of informal tables and chairs, such as painted furniture, willow or bamboo, and coloured, not white, table cloths, doilies and napkins, to avoid the glare from the reflection of strong light. ”

“ All the cabinet-makers of the eighteenth century made ingenious contrivances in the way of furniture, washstands concealed in what appear to be corner cupboards, a table that looks as simple as a table possibly can, but has a small step-ladder and book rest hidden away in its useful inside, and many others. ”

“ Attractive and inexpensive painted furniture can be made to be used in simple surroundings by buying slat-backed chairs with splint seats and a drop-leaf pine table and having them painted the desired ground color and then striped and decorated with a motif from the chintz to be used in the room. ”

“ As the drawing-room usually opens from the hall, it is better to keep both rooms in the same general scale of furnishing. The average sized drawing-room will need sofas, a small settee, two or three tables, one of them a gallery table if desired, chairs of different shapes and size, mirrors, a cabinet if one has rare pieces of old porcelain, and candelabra. Oriental rugs, a fire screen, ornaments, and pictures, but these last should not be of the modern impressionistic school. The woodwork should be white, or light, and the furniture covered with damask, needlework, brocade or tapestry. ”

“ Measure carefully to locate the frame in proper position, and fasten with four 21⁄2 or 23⁄4 inch flat [370] head screws. Assuming that all parts of the frame have been scraped and sand-papered before assembling, the table is ready for polishing.
Oak is the wood commonly used for this piece of furniture, but if well seasoned, chestnut is lighter in weight and just as satisfactory as to grain and finish. (See staining and polishing.)
Sometimes in mission furniture the legs of the table are allowed to come up through the top. This design is shown at Fig. 198. ”

“ Raynal and myself; the men occupy the other end. A cook's dressing table stands behind the door which opens towards the men's end. There are also two or three shelves round the place, which, with a pair of bellows and my looking-glass, complete the furniture. ”

“ Furniture is marred and broken, and none has been replaced for four years. Dishes are cemented in various styles, and half the pitchers have tin handles. A complete set of crockery is never seen, and in very few families is there enough left to set a table in a manner approaching gentility. ”

“ Sometimes there is a table in addition to the plain wooden chairs, more or less dilapidated, constituting the furniture—a hearth, in connection with a brick chimney outside the cottage, in which, hot as the day may be, some embers are sure to be found burning. ”

“ There were a number of variations of the arrangement of feet. In order to accommodate a large party several of these tables could be placed together, and when not in use could be placed against the wall to serve as side-tables. His [Pg 79] easy chairs—and he made many of these, large and comfortable—he covered entirely with upholstery, no woodwork showing but the legs. (See Figure 56) .
Figure 31. HEPPLEWHITE CARD-TABLE.
In the Hepplewhite and Shearer pieces the noticeable feature of decoration is the inlay, often of two or three coloured woods and in a variety of designs. ”

“ The decorations of the table are small spools with bright tissue-paper for flowers arranged at the four corners of the table, and the plates are the round pasteboard tops from milk bottles. [36]
Fig. 72—The dining table.
When enough furniture has been manufactured, build
A Wagon
Fig. 73—Pattern of little wagon.
Cut Fig. 73 from heavy paper or cardboard that will fold without breaking. Bend all the dotted lines and cut all the heavy lines in the pattern. Push a burnt match, or a wooden toothpick through one hub, then through an empty spool [37] and the second hub. ”

“ A little heap of peat smoulders in the kitchen behind the bedroom, and thus hot water, a prime necessary, is very scarce. The furniture consists of a central drugget, a round dinner-table, a square writing ditto, a work-table, a commode, a tall armoire, and sundry horsehair chairs, with a sofa, which{341} must often act bed. In the rear of the kitchen is a microscopic pantry wherein it is not good to peer. ”

“ Our breakfast table is oval, large enough for eight or nine persons, yet supported upon one claw in the centre. This is the newest fashion, and fashions change so often in these things, as well as in every thing else, that it is easy to know how 155long it is since a house has been fitted up, by the shape of the furniture. ”

“ Empire style. The first illustration in his "Cabinet Maker's and Upholsterer's Book" is what he calls a "Universal table," to be made of mahogany, and which at will may be converted into a dining-table, or, by pulling out a drawer, discover all the compartments necessary for storing kitchen condiments, such as sugar and spices, etc. The sofa depicted in Figure 36 shows this merging into Empire style, for the legs are heavier than those we are accustomed to, and the carved pineapple appears on the arm instead of the more delicate carving seen on earlier chairs and sofas. ”

“ The curved supports to the mirror are carved and then painted with gold, as is the mirror-frame itself. The handles are glass, with bosses of gilt, completing an unusually handsome piece of furniture. The glass handles place the date of this bureau as not earlier than 1820.
Figure 70. AMERICAN-MADE ROSEWOOD CARD-TABLE.
The work of domestic furniture-makers has often been referred to in this work, and in Figure 69 are given examples of three chairs, all of them mahogany, the two on the left being in Sheraton style, and the one on the right rather later, and coming under the head of Empire. ”

“ My furniture, part of which I made myself, and the rest cost me nothing of which I have not rendered an account, consisted of a bed, a table, a desk, three chairs, a looking-glass three inches in diameter, a pair of tongs and andirons, a kettle, a skillet, and a frying-pan, a dipper, a wash-bowl, two knives and forks, three plates, one cup, one spoon, a jug for oil, a jug for molasses, and a japanned lamp. None is so poor that he need sit on a pumpkin. ”

“ Facing the only gas-lamp yawned the cavern of a second-hand furniture dealer, where, deep in the gloom of a sort of narrow avenue winding through a bizarre forest of wardrobes, with an undergrowth tangle of table legs, a tall pier-glass glimmered like a pool of water in a wood. An unhappy, homeless couch, accompanied by two unrelated chairs, stood in the open. ”

“ There are no bamboo tables, no skimpy French chairs or Japanese umbrellas; everything is severely plain and impeccably clean. The wood shines, the table linen is hard and glossy, the glass is hand cut and heavy, the plate quite plain and obviously dear. ”

“ As for broken hearts, no self-respecting young woman shows such an ornament at any well regulated breakfast-table; they are kept in dark drawers and closets like other broken furniture. ”

“ In [pg 129] the middle ages cupboards or dressers were mere covered boards or shelves against a wall on which plate was set out, and were made of three or four or more stages according to the splendour of the occasion. The cupboard dresser of more modest pretensions was considered as a piece of dining-room furniture. ”