When one starts thinking about purchasing furnishings for a home, certain time periods inevitably come to mind. Painted cottage furnishings are no different.
Painted Cottage Furnishings
The essence of Painted Cottage furnishings is the appearance of age and a sense that somehow the piece must be a family heirloom of great sentimentality. It is said that when a piece of Cottage furnishings rolls off an assembly line, it already looks old. The look had its beginnings in America in the years prior to the Civil War most notably on the East Coast. It had the restraint of the Victorian era in its design, but was usually decorated with colorful hand painted designs.
After the Civil War, the people in the North began to turn their attention to luxury items, and Cottage pieces began appearing in the homes of the very wealthy. The look was so popular that it did not stay exclusively a luxury item for long, and workshops began turning out pieces designed for the average home. A very few of the pieces had carvings, but the majority were decorated by painting. Flowers and fruits were the most common design used. Even the beds, that followed the Victorian mode and featured extremely large headboards, had brightly colored designs painted on them.
Many of the craftsmen making the items were much better carpenters than they were artists, and the designs were often crudely drawn. Strangely, these primitive looking drawings added to the charm and sometimes even to the value of the pieces. Other artists were a bit more talented and produced rather elaborate landscapes, sailing vessels, or examples of local wildlife. The most popular colors were tan, blues, greens, and pinks, and some of the pieces were left unpainted. On these pieces, the natural wood was heavily varnished and the only color came from the brightly painted design.
In the early part of the last century, Cottage furnishings began to appear in antique shops, and few new pieces were produced. There was a shift in the idea of just what the Cottage look meant during this time. It was during this time that it really earned its name. The motif was based on the idea that the pieces were basically left over pieces from the main house that were being used to decorate the guest house. This is where the idea of age and sentiment came into the picture. Many of the pieces were from the original period of popularity a generation or two earlier, and had been retained in the family. They were too old and did not fit into the more modern decorating trends of the time, but you just couldn’t bear to throw them away.
Today you can still find Cottage furnishings in flea markets, antique shops, and even yard sales, and the look is more popular for the den or guest bedroom rather than the living room or master bedroom. The bright colors, cheerful pastels, and the primitive, colorful designs have retained their charm, and have led to a resurgence in the manufacture of the pieces. They are now also being found more often in retail stores.
Stephan Teak is with FurnitureStoresforYou.com - information on
furniture styles.
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