Handsome Empire Sofa w/Original Upholstery

[Manalto]

Many are available to the trade only (ie you must be a designer or upholsterer of some status to purchase the better ones from the distributor) and the prices are just insane.

There is a fabric store near me in Connecticut where the owner, who is a real bulldog about finding interesting material from design houses in New York, offers everything at $2.99 per yard. Anytime I find something that is unusual or would make a good upholstery project, I snap it up. I'm not much of a judge of fabrics but sometimes I can tell. I have acquired a bit of a stockpile

[phil]

I really like the one in the original post. Its easy to get too much antique furniture with hopes of restoring it so you do have to be fussy unless you can afford to hire it out.
I wonder if those "original brass wheels" belong. maybe someone just drilled holes and stuck some old wheels in there?
The others are a bit too ornate for my tastes but nice.

Leather seems like a likely alternative to the horsehair, but if you can find suitable upholstery, why not.

smells, well if you were intending to strip and do a proper ground up restoration than I wouldn't fear the wood holding onto smells and you'd probably replace the rest. reuse the springs. heck they used to bury the wood in horse dung because they liked the look it gave the wood. I think they still make horsehair
It's quite a project though. neat to see.
I think its the sort of thing you could fall in love with and spend oodles of time to restore and be proud of. If you are so inclined then you might also buy a lot of other antiques and swamp yourself in projects. If you pay someone else to restore it then you could probably expect a big price unless you know someone specifically that would take it on. hopefully someone that doesn't suggest foam or use a glue gun maybe there is merit in just leaving it as is give it a good cleaning and enjoy it for what it is? patch what's necessary and call it an antique?

maybe some things like this , that are rare and original would see an increase in price as there are so many that would buy it and do a novice attempt at recovering it. Antiques seem to be at an all time low but they don't make them anymore so perhaps in years prices will go up? ( supply and demand changes) I'm not seeing that effect with my old radios. They just don't interest most younger people. Maybe furniture is different.

[Manalto]

I think the point with furniture in good original condition is to leave it that way.

From what I've gathered in casual conversations with people who deal in antiques and second-hand goods, now is a good time to get furniture; there simply isn't much demand for it. One dealer told me the only style/era that moves quickly for him is mid-century modern. He's in New Haven, which is dominated by Yale University, so that could have something to do with it.

[Gothichome]

Mottled arberite with Chrome legs and vinyl covered chairs, fetching crazy prices carching up fast with better quality teak from the fifties and sixties. We should have waited another decade or so before furnishing Gothichome, could have saved a bundle.

[Mick_VT]

I think the point with furniture in good original condition is to leave it that way.

From what I've gathered in casual conversations with people who deal in antiques and second-hand goods, now is a good time to get furniture; there simply isn't much demand for it. One dealer told me the only style/era that moves quickly for him is mid-century modern. He's in New Haven, which is dominated by Yale University, so that could have something to do with it.

I have heard that in general we prefer the styles of our grandparents - this explains the rise in MCM as many millenials grew up with grandparents who bought a lot of their furniture when it was at it's height. For us (ahem) older folks, we might associate MCM more with our parents so tend to see it as just out of fashion

[Manalto]

That makes sense. If you're going to be nostalgic, your grandparents and their belongings would be the natural place for your thoughts to go.

Along the same lines, I've heard your musical taste is dominated by what you liked at the age of 30

[1918ColonialRevival]

There's been a ton of antique furniture hitting the market over the last 15-20 years. I've attributed it to a few reasons:

1. The last of the WWI generation, who saved literally everything, dying off in the 1990s and early 2000s.
2. The WWII generation, who were also known to save a lot of stuff, downsizing and moving into retirement communities in the same timeframe.
3. The internet. A lot of stuff that was believed to be rare before 1995 has turned out to not be so rare after all.

That said, I don't understand all the interest in the more wild-looking pieces from the post-WWII/Baby Boom era today. A lot of it is low quality compared to pieces made a century earlier and virtually all of it was mass produced.

The sofa Willa's original post looks to be from the era when the Empire style was waning and the Victorian styles were emerging, probably the early to mid 1840s up to about 1850. The casters may be original - I've seen pieces older than that with casters on them that had been there from the beginning. It's a quality piece that is definitely worth the restoration, though considering it needs work, I think $1k is a little optimistic.

Large pieces with original horsehair fabric are exceedingly rare to find in good condition. If I were to find one, I'd almost be afraid to use it regularly, in fear of damaging the fabric. Horsehair is prohibitively expensive for all but those with the deepest pockets.

[Gothichome]

1918, a very good overview of the state of the antique as I see it. As I think we’ve all noticed, Victorian (all Victorian) values and appreciation have fallen off a cliff and some of it you can’t give it away. Could very well be there is no generation left to remember it, not even centarians so it has been lost to all but a few.
As far as MCM in my view it has it’s place, and that place is proper MCM homes. Maybe it is that MCM should have its place in the sun, I know it too will wain in the not so distant future. What will replace MCM but the glass and chrome of the seventies and eighties. Now in retrospect that that’s what we bought new and fits the grandparent theory.
My hope for the next twenty or so years now that all Victoriana are proper (old)antiques,the appreciation for the style and quality of construction (never mind real wood) will once again be appreciated and the values rise once more.

[Willa]

What will replace MCM but the glass and chrome of the seventies and eighties. Now in retrospect that that’s what we bought new and fits the grandparent theory.
My hope for the next twenty or so years now that all Victoriana are proper (old)antiques,the appreciation for the style and quality of construction (never mind real wood) will once again be appreciated and the values rise once more.

Those kids over at Apartment Therapy and the like are all over bright brass and glass end tables, macrame plant hangers, neon signs, tacky plant wallpaper and 80's looking furniture. Pretty soon I guess they'll be into the Santa Fe look, too ? I don't even know what 1990's/2000's home furnishing and decor looked like - I have blanked it out.

Even low end 1950's furniture seems "built" by comparison to its contemporary equivalent.

There are many interesting questions about the people here who ARE attracted to older homes and furnishings. Aline Kominsky Crumb (wife of Robert Crumb and a very funny cartoonist herself) often wrote about her parent's 1950's/60's Long Island home which was full of the latest tacky atomic furnishings, which she hated. Both she and R. Crumb seemed attracted to the generation that pre-dated their parents - like being into 1920's blues musicians, and modest pre- 1940's home furnishings. In the documentary "Crumb" their home is a modest 1920's cottage filled with very homey, vintage furnishings, and R. Crumb's giant 78 collection. As suburban development was encroaching, R. Crumb sold off several journals so the family could move to a pre 1900 villa in southern France.

I was just thrift shopping yesterday, and right now there is an abundance of lead crystal for dirt cheap. I remember buying a pair of crystal wine glasses for my parent's anniversary, and I seem to recall paying about $ 25.00 per glass in the early 80's ? Now large and heavy cut crystal vases can be had for about $ 12.00 CAN, or less. I left with a 1950 signed ValLambert candleholder for $ 3.00. Things that were highly esteemed by our parents or grandparents generation are now almost worthless (see also: matched sets of high end china). It's a good time for the buying, if you are a collector, if you can see the appeal of the newly value-less ?

[1918ColonialRevival]

Most of our furniture is from the 1800s-1830s, which would consist of the last two major styles of the Federal era, Sheraton and Empire. We also have a few Victorian pieces, a few Colonial and early Federal pieces (1740s-1790s), and a few pieces from the 1900-1920 era. Around here, pre-Victorian stuff still tends to sell fairly quickly if it's priced good. Victorian styles are hit or miss, with Rococo, Renaissance, and Gothic Revival pieces being more popular than Eastlake and similar styles.

Then there's the crowd who is in love with the MCM stuff, which I would date approximately from 1945-1965. Most of these seem to be a cult of sorts, with most of them living in an urban environment and being about 25-35 years old. Basically what would have been called Yuppies in the '80s and '90s. I agree that I would only put MCM furniture in a house that was designed for it. Last summer, I toured a large mid-1950s ranch that was still mostly all original. That's about the only application that the wilder MCM pieces would really work in style-wise.

Finally, there's the crowd that's roughly college age now, who seem to be developing an interest in the stuff from the 1970s and 80s, which to me were probably the two tackiest decades of the 20th Century. I may be wrong, but I believe the interest comes from the stuff being cheap and widely available in thrift stores now and a starving college student can furnish a whole apartment on a couple hundred bucks. I have no idea if this style even has a name. Maybe "Late Cold War" would be a good name for it....