furniture

  • T. M. Uli & Son

    Lgchaise

    Tim Uli and his son make A & C furniture in San Saba, Texas. Tim has been making furniture for over 30 years, and his work ranges from traditional Craftsman pieces to his own furniture and lamp designs, which he calls a "craftsman / shaker / asian" style. He specializes in a wide range of seating types, and his Morris recliners, chaises and loveseats are especially popular sellers (and check out this collapsable gate-leg table – one of my favorites). His work is done traditionally – steam-bent chair parts, ammonia fumed finishes, etc. – and he builds by custom order only – no inventory is kept on hand.

    After ten years making furniture in Maine – he was a member of the Guild of Maine Woodworkers and a founding member of the Salt River Artisans Gallery in Boothbay –  Tim moved to Texas and has remained there ever since. His prices are reasonable and his work quite attractive; should you need a custom built piece made anywhere in Texas or nearby, please do drop him a line.

  • Mission Settles

    A quick survey of Mission and Prairie-styled settles:

    • Southern Joinery sells this model, pictured in tan fabric upholstery and walnut, for $2,850. They also have a nice range of spindle-sided tables and some interesting seating (check out the wide bench!) and case goods as well;
    • The Arts & Crafts Home carries a range of pieces, including a very comfortable-looking paneled settle, and several others, some slatted and some with spindles;
    • Ben Barclay Woodworking has an extremely attractive settle (scroll down to see it) that comes with any of several upholstery options for $2457 – $5043, depending on which you choose;
    • J. Austin Antiques in Amherst MA has this slat-backed settle – almost Shaker in its simplicity – for $575; it looks like a shortened version of the popular Limbert design;
    • you’d expect Warren Hile to make a beautiful settle; as with his other work, his is made from beautifully grained tank staves – white oak salvaged from wine casks – and looks sturdy as heck, for $8800 or $9800 depending on upholstery – Craftsman Home has a better picture of it here;
    • Swartzendruber Hardwood makes a very Frank Lloyd Wrightesque settle, with vertical and horizontal lines reminiscent of the Robie House, and it can be made with shelf arms and back – Oak Park Home & Hardware carries it, although no price is given;
    • One of my favorite furniture dealers, Rockridge Antiques / Rockridge Furniture in Oakland CA, carries a contemporary shelf-arm spindle-back settle for $3250;
    • El Dorado Woodworks has a terrific sectional settle ($14,192), as well as more orthodox varieties;
    • William Laberge has very nice settles and sofas (scroll down to see all of them), some paneled and some with spindle backs and arms;
    • horror of horrors! fifty years ago, the original owner of this Stickley / Quaint Furniture settle painted it a hideous pinkish red. It’s big and in good shape, otherwise – although not a deal at $1895, given the amount of work it will take to strip and refinish;
    • Phil Taylor Antiques, in Ottumwa IA, has this paneled settle for $2450;
    • Richard Bissell made this high-grain slat-armed quartersawn oak settle for a client;
    • Randy of the eponymous Hardwood Floors by Randy built this attractive slat-back and -arm settle [ 1 / 2] with a nice wide rail all around;
    • Michael Wollowski built this beautiful spindle-arm and -back settle in 2002;
    • here are a few nice pictures of a slat-backed Limbert settle that recently sold;

    • Maren Dunn Antiques       recently sold this simple slat-backed short settle, in oak and leather;
    • and of course, last but very definitely not least, we have one of Gustav’s original settle designs, which was made of fumed oak; Stickley still makes a settle, not nothing like the original.


    Know of others? Make one yourself? Send me a picture or URL!

  • Manufacturers on a New Mission

    by Charlyne Varkonyi Schaub, Knight-Ridder Newspapers

    Furniture manufacturers are betting we’re so fed up with
    technology and mass-produced goods that we will want to put our money
    on the "Simple Life."

    This yearning for a vanishing lifestyle has nothing to do with Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton.

    It
    has everything to do with the Arts & Crafts Movement that made
    Gustav Stickley, Frank Lloyd Wright and Greene & Greene household
    names.

    The most repeated mantra at the International Home
    Furnishings Market that ended here Wednesday was the simple lines and
    fine craftsmanship of Arts & Crafts and Mission furniture. Nearly
    25 percent of the manufacturers introduced this style at the market,
    according to a Furniture/Today and Home Accents Today survey. Among
    them are Hooker’s Simply American, Magnussen Home’s Oak Park,
    Copeland’s Prairie by Frank Lloyd Wright and Stickley’s additions to
    Pasadena Bungalow and Historic Mission.

    read the full article at nwtimes.com

  • Greene Design Furniture

    Dozachair
    Just got a postcard in the mail advertising Greene Design Furniture‘s new Doza line. Looks like a neat mix of contemporary Japanese elements and Craftsman design, with a real emphasis on the low wide lines of the Prairie movement – the seating is especially spacious. The armrests are carved from a single large piece of cherry, and then pretty dark walnut is inlaid. The cushions, however, look more mid-century modern than Craftsman, but work surprisingly well with the rest of the designs. A downloadable PDF describes the measurements of the pieces a bit better, although it doesn’t look like pricing information is available yet.

  • Frank Lloyd Wright Designs High Point of High Point

    by Christopher Murther, Boston Globe

    The velvet rope – usually only employed to protect Anna Nicole Smith,
    Ashton Kutcher, or Sasquatch from an overzealous public –  sits imposingly in
    front of the moss green wall. Behind the rope and the wall lives the superstar
    of this year’s High Point International Home Furnishings Market: The premiere
    home collection from a designer who passed away nearly 50 years ago.

    Despite the small matter that Frank Lloyd Wright designed his Prairie
    collection at the turn of the last century, his pieces were some of the most
    innovative on display in the acres of furniture at this year’s High Point
    Market. Wright’s collection was just the beginning of the Mission-style
    explosion at High Point, the biannual market where the country’s leading
    furniture makers premiered their newest offerings for buyers and journalists.

    By preternatural coincidence, a half-dozen furniture makers rolled out
    lines this spring that incorporate elements of Arts and Crafts and Mission
    styles –  furniture that is marked by fine wood and simple lines. While
    several of the mammoth showrooms looked as if they had been assembled by
    followers of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, less clear was why a show that is
    intended as a harbinger of living rooms and bedrooms of the future was looking
    back 100 years at the Arts and Crafts movement.

    read the rest on the Halifax Chronicle-Herald site – the Boston Globe doesn’t allow free access to its archives.

  • On Craigslist, Right Now

    Bits and pieces of mostly Stickley furniture from both coasts and in between:

    • English Arts & Crafts dresser with interesting inlay, $850 (Berkeley CA)
    • Lifetime Furniture oak and glass china cabinet, $2500 (Berkeley CA)
    • Gustav Stickley rocker, $1500 (Berkeley CA)
    • Stickley upholstered settle in cherry, plus coffee table, $3750 (San Francisco CA)
    • Morris chair with red leather cushions, $1100 (Richmond CA)
    • Stickley Bros. high-back rocker, $900 (Los Angeles CA)
    • library table-styled coffee table, $800 (Los Angeles CA)
    • L & JG Stickley Handcraft armchair, $650 (Los Angeles CA)
    • contemporary Stickley coffee table, $599 (Los Angeles CA)
    • unknown maker round dining table, $800 (Pasadena CA)
    • contemporary Stickley #700 design bookcase, $1200 (Eagle Rock CA)
    • reproduction Gustav Stickley designs, various pieces (table and leaves, chair, coffee table), $4200 (Denver CO)
    • contemporary (and enormous) keyhole trestle Stickley dining table + 6 Harvey Ellis chairs, 2 w/ arms, $7000 (Hartford CT)
    • lot of old L & JG Stickley furniture catalogs and ephemera, $35 (Boston MA)
    • pretty high-grain server / sideboard, $250 (Boston MA)
    • unique writing desk with writing-top drawer, needs new finish, $125 (Minneapolis MN)
    • v. attractive Stickley paneled Prairie settle with red leather upholstery, $2450 (Westchester NY)

  • Craigslist Finds for April 2006

    Lots of good stuff on Craigslist all over the country this month. Here are a number of items I found interesting:

    • two nice tansus – San Francisco
    • very pretty large tansu, $4500 – San Francisco
    • contemporary Stickley bedroom set – San Francisco
    • Limbert sideboard buffet, signed, $6500 – Lafayette CA
    • Stickley streamline "Metropolitan" style bedroom set, $5495 – San Anselmo CA
    • Stickley Bros. ("Quaint Furniture" label) child’s rocker, $275 – Carmel CA
    • 4 Murphy oak side chairs, $30 each – Denver
    • nice Craftsman coatrack, $95 – Austin
    • questionable ad for a Harvey Ellis rocker – note no picture of actual item (only link to a similar item); cash only; $850 – Rye NY
    • pre-1914 Stickley library desk, $900 – Manhattan
    • several small items of Craftsman furniture – Oakland CA
    • interesting Craftsman bench, $175 – Albany CA
    • nice green glazed tile, unknown maker, $5/sq ft – Santa Rosa CA
    • 14 nice old wooden doors with original brass hardware – Pittsburgh PA
    • high-backed wooden rocker, $150 – Boston MA
    • sturdy oak piano bench, $75 – Los Angeles
    • two Japanese chests (one tansu, one choba), $1500 for both – Washington DC
    • large, partially glass-fronted tansu, $500 – Denver
    • pair of Andersen Frenchwood In-Swing Prairie-style doors, $900 – Campbell CA
    • contemporary Prairie-style bathroom vanity, $400 – Chicago
    • contemporary Stickley living room set – sofa / settle, loveseat, endtables, coffee table, $3000 – Minneapolis
    • Limbert rocker, $300 – Phoenix
    • Limbert rocker, $750 – Portland OR
    • Limbert rocker with leather seat, $650 – Portland OR
    • terrific glass-door built-in sideboard, $850 – Burlingame CA
    • oak library card catalog, $975 – Albany CA
    • Arts & Crafts rocker with new seat, $150 – Milpitas CA
    • very unorthodox c. 1910 extremely heavy-duty rocker, $395 – Portland OR
    • Deco / Craftsman organic-look table, $350 – Honolulu
    • stained-glass transom window, $275 – Detroit
    • Arts & Crafts magazine rack adapted to hold CDs, $30 – Dallas
    • cowhide-upholstered oak armchair, $195 – Austin TX
    • Arts & Crafts library table with typical side shelving, $400 – Minneapolis
    • previously built-in room dividing cabinet / bookshelf, $125 – Minneapolis
    • spindle bookshelf, $150 – Houston
    • several oak items including a nice file cabinet, various prices – Manhattan
    • pair of antique Prairie / Mission glass French doors, $300 – Boston
    • copper and art glass hanging light fixture, $450 – San Antonio

  • March Craigslist Bonanza

    Yellowcraigslistsideboardjlt
    Last night I picked up a great A&C sideboard (pictured) in Carmichael, courtesy of a nice fellow in a ’70s modernist home who was remodeling to fit the house a bit better. $400 – what a bargain!

    But there are plenty of other bargains out there if you can sort through all the junk ads for faux-Mission dining room collections and cheap Chinese-made junk. So – here you go – I searched so you don’t have to:

    and several nice tansu:

    • Santa Rosa: two lacquered tansu
    • East Bay: persimmon tansu
    • East Bay: unorthodox tansu
    • Seattle: small Korean tansu
    • Honolulu: Taisho-era tansu
    • Seattle: step tansu
    • Washington DC: tropical tansu
    • Atlanta: step tansu
    • Orange County: gorgeous, enormous tansu

  • Arts & Crafts on Ebay, February

    Lots of neat stuff on Ebay right now, but for the love of God, please people, stop trying to get hits on your old junk by suggesting that a hammered-copper cowboy hat ashtray may be Roycroft when you know perfectly well that it ain’t. Or something named as a "Stickley magazine rack" that certainly isn’t (further down the seller says ‘no marks to suggest that it is but it certainly fits the styling…’ – sure. We call this kind of misleading labeling "hit whoring," and it’s not a very honest or nice thing to do. This guy even admits that it’s signed "K&Co." but insists on labeling the auction "Roycroft?" – how kind.

    but nice A&C furniture and decorative items don’t need to be signed or big-name to be pretty.

  • Relative Valuation

    There’s a very good thread over on ask.metafilter today regarding the relative valuation of antique furniture and the best way to sell unique and high-priced items – it’s a good place to start if you’re inexperienced and find yourself with something you’d like to sell.