Featured Brown Furniture popular again?

An antique dealer on Friday told me the only people buying Japanese porcelains are Americans. And not many of those. The bottom has fallen out even further for them I suspect. OTOH that makes it bargain central for collectors!

I too fall into the Leave it like you found it camp of paint-vs-no paint, unless a piece is badly damaged beyond the point of being worth worrying about.

 

Generally, I agree with that but, having said that, most of the stuff that passes thru here is vintage at best, manufactured by the 100s of thousands of pieces or maybe millions of pieces.
And in that case, it doesn't really matter I don't think, paint away if it suits you,
or not!

 

I like Japanese, and maybe that is true of Nippon which is an American culture shaped around the McKinley tariff, however just because we dont call it Nippon does not mean we don't appreciate it for what it is. Japanese is still desirable, and if an d when the gamers grow tired of buying skins for their weapons, and decide to invest in soemthing more tangible then my money is on Japanese as the first port of call. Chinese art requires an almost academic discipline whereas Japanese porcelain is much easier to learn. Satsuma has good potential in the future but ironically it is hard to find quality satsuma and especially hard to get it at a good price.

The game market is worth billions and 80% of that goes to skins andupgrades and other pay to play features, all that money will someday find it's way to Asian art.

 

Yuck

 

Brown furniture can be charming. It depends on what one does with it. Not changing its color or character but accessorizing it with colorful friendly accents.

Speaking of trends, it has now been officially established that the Minimalism fashion is seriously on the wane, and that Maximalism is returning in a big way:
More is More.. courtesy The Walrus [Canada] via Pocket.

This trend is already in full view if we but look around in "new stores", including online.

When the major stores stop flogging minimalism, as in beige/gray/white with black trim, and discount stores hawk the same looks at big price drops, we just know that the look is passé. Example image below in an email from a wellknown discount store chain the other day. Note the neutral colors throughout. Makes even nice "brown" furniture look dull!


I, once an original Swede, have never been fond of minimalism.

When returning home from studies in England in the early 1960s I was shocked to discover that my parents had traded in (probably donated) my favorite bordeaux color mohair plush three-seater sofa for a gray (itchy!) wool covered Mid-Century Modern couch on spindly splayed legs with a hard seat!

I was furious. How could they do that to my fondest childhood memories, being curled up in the soft mohair pillows with my little sister and brother reading a fun book to them. My childhood memories would not stand for that kind of brutal redaction.



Oh well, I was on my way out on the continent the following month anyway so didn't have to suffer the gray MCM look for too long. But, just the same. That's one big reason I positively detest the minimalism boring look of the mid-20th century.

I still embrace the More Is MORE look! I inherited my love for cabbage rose motifs in abundance from my mother who had them everywhere. They were colorful, lively and HUGE in and around our home while growing up. I e, they spelled comfort, safety, in an otherwise gray and uncertain world in Europe of the 1950s. And I repeat the motif wherever I live now too:

My "pub" corner of the Great Room.

Here's to Maximalism, complete with brown furniture, cabbage roses and comfy seating, be it old or new!

 

This is a REALLY good point!!!! LOL... and I actually ran into that myself! I inherited a darling kitchen nook table (mission design) with two settle benches that my Granddad made in the 30's - 40's... out of hard rock maple that was milled on the property. I always LOVED LOVED LOVED the set.

Eventually, they came to me - my Mother had painted them that hideous 70's green avocado with a stain wash... and then it sat in the basement for years.

I LOVE dark brown wood furniture... and I only remembered that this was always white/cream color when it belonged to my Grands. So it was my intention to strip it down to maple and stain it darker. HAHA... I got the green off... but apparently, it was white/cream milk paint. Unfortunately the green came off and the milk paint came off, unevenly. What to do? I ended up repainting it white. I "wish" I had just the original milk paint now... alas... without having to had to deal with the green!

Anyway, still love the set and am so grateful that it landed with me! We use it out on our enclosed back porch where it is "perfect"!

Cheerio, Leslie

 

Here's a brief thing I got which I'm quite happy with. Lots pills off, no hinges.
Just a cheap thing but nice brown wood. I really don't mind brown furniture. Can put some bright paintings on the wall etc.
I think get a nice feel of history off brown furniture

 

70s avocado green was an evil thing to do to furniture. Harvest gold isn't too far behind, but at least no one painted wood furniture harvest gold.

 

Indeed it was.
When I say I am a big fan of "painted furniture" I am talking about PROFESSIONALLY painted/decorated furniture.
Not Ma & Pa Kettle going down to the local hardware store & slathering something HIDEOUS on furniture.

 

Saw this on Reddit yesterday on the "furnitureflipping" channel. Not sure this is avocado but it's close! Not my taste but it is well done I think.
Title of post was

"Quick little side table flip"


Is that top Harvest gold? before photo

 

Another chuckle!!!

 

I think paint with grain looks like an awful clash. Should have just painted the lot.

 

Not Harvest Gold before (my mother loved it) and not Avocado Green after (bought a house built in the 70s, bathtub, toilet and sink were Avocado). Having lived through both I will never forget them no matter how hard I try

 

LOL, I'll bet.

 

I see a lot of this type of decorating around the net, "waterfall" furniture seems to be a favorite of these decorators. Where they combine the natural wood with paint and some of it is very well executed and sells for good money.

 

@Marie Forjan Am with you there, Marie! My 1970's experience with those two colors had to do with a refrigerator.

My (1st) husband, a Swede like me, and I moved into our first home, a great 4-story stone and masonry colonial built 1927. It needed A LOT of work but we were young and ready for it. The electric box said 8 amp (not a typo) which took care of a few electric lights. We had to rewire and it took time.

The first things we bought were a washer and a dryer. Next was a fridge, after the house was rewired to 200 amp. We had moved in in Nov so a cold pantry kept food fresh until the weather turned warmer in April.

I found a Sunday newspaper ad for a promotion on a fridge, cut it out and we drove to Sears on the same Sunday to buy the fridge shown. It was white in a medium size we thought would be perfect for just two people who didn't need that much fridge space (we ate out a lot where we worked).

Well, I had my first experience with bait & switch; the fridge in the ad that I had in hand turned out to not exist. We were told it was "sold out". It couldn't have been because we were inside the store when it opened on Sunday morning! We (I mostly) insisted loudly that we had come for THAT fridge at the bargain price of $200.00 (plus tax and delivery), and that it was the ONLY one we wanted.

Too bad, that fridge did not exist, it was a come-on to be upsold to a more expensive model. I was furious. We had thought long and hard before arriving at the decision to buy this very fridge and didn't want to hear about any bigger better and more colorful models.

After the manager was invoked (I guess I was a real Karen in those days, long before the term was coined), the store offered us a choice of the better fridges priced another hundred and up, for the same price as advertised for the (non-existant) white fridge.

Now to the choice of color! We had really wanted WHITE like the ad showed but these better models were only available in Harvest Gold, Autumn Copper, and [you guessed it] Avocado Green.

We disliked all three, what now? Well, we took Autumn Copper as the least offensive (to us) color choice and lived with it for as long as we owned that house, less than eight years actually. The fridge was alright and stayed hidden in the cold pantry with a door to the kitchen so we didn't have to see it except for adding and removing foods.

I have fond memories of that fight about false advertising. I even called a friend of mine who wrote for the Sunday magazine of the paper that had the fridge ad. She made hay of our experience in an article that followed but kept our names and that of the store out of it. Some time thereafter there was less bait & switch in appliance and furniture ads we were happy to note.

In the years that followed I also tried hard not to own any other appliance or furniture in any of the named colors. Better they stay back there in the 1970s along with other mistakes I made back then!

 

Before

After


waterfall




Late 17th century, American, original paint. Probably Hadley Mass

Click to enlarge

 

This paint with natural wood thingy has been going on for over 3 centuries in America. just sayin.......

 

I will confess I have done it myself. This little vanity desk by Tibbenham was painted all over in a terrible shade of yellow when I found it. I didn't think it was worth stripping the entire thing so I just stripped the top and repainted the rest in an off-white. I agree with James that painting the mass produced pieces of the 20th Century is no great crime but I don't do it myself unless they are damaged or already painted.

 

Imho only the 17C one looks any good out of that lot