Vintage Furniture
Welcome to Vintage Furniture Guide!
We have been dealing in vintage furniture for over ten years and have sold millions of dollars of fine reproduction furniture. Let me tell you, all vintage furniture is not created equally. There are thousands of nuanced details in the field of vintage furniture, so whether you are buying vintage furniture or selling vintage furniture, VintageFurnitureGuide.com will help you navigate your journey. If you have a chance browse one of the best vintage furniture stores near me.
Additionally, we spend hours every day searching for the best deals, and the most stylish home furnishings on the market today. We constantly update these searches with accurate available items that can be shipped to you in a matter of days or weeks.
What is Vintage Furniture? Vintage Furniture versus Antique Furniture?
Vintage Furniture is different than antique furniture. While most dealers and experts use the term “antique” for anything 100 years or older, vintage furniture has less age. Generally, vintage furniture must be at least 15 to 99 years old to be considered vintage.
Why buy Vintage Furniture?
The best vintage furniture has style and quality that can’t be matched by manufacturers today! American made Vintage furniture has lasted for decades. The construction techniques and high quality timber make vintage furniture one of the best investments for your home. Simply put, solid wood furniture can last for a lifetime!
Expensive materials like solid oak, solid mahogany, solid cherry and solid maple were more plentiful even forty years ago. Heck, old growth forests sadly don’t blanket the countryside anymore. When trees have time to grow slowly, their rings are tighter and denser. Thus, the boards captured from old growth trees have more weight and strength then trees planted and harvested more recently.
So, when your elders say, “they just don’t make it like they used to,” they’ve got a point! One only has to take a look at the pine and douglas fir inside an old home and compare it to lumber sold today to see the difference an old tree makes!
Additionally, used furniture comes in all different sizes, colors and styles. Whether you love Colonial style furniture, French Provincial Style furniture, or Mid Century Modern furniture, Vintage Furniture can help you beautify your home in a totally unique way.
Indeed, many of our customers talk about walking into “new furniture stores” and feeling the urge to run! A lot of modern manufacturers simply ignore traditional furniture styles and cater to younger uninformed buyers. Often, we see cheaper materials taking form in modified dorm room furniture style! (My husband has another word for all the grey bland furniture that is “in” these days. He calls it “prison chic!”)
Sadly, trendiness and cheap imports have replaced good old quality wood furniture.
Finally, buying vintage furniture saves you money. While genuine antique furniture can cost a pretty penny, most vintage furniture businesses sell their merchandise at a fraction of the cost of the original retail price.
What Vintage Furniture brands are the best to look for?
Certain furniture brands have established a reputation for quality, style and finish. These brands generally have a higher value on the resale market. And for good reason! These brands might have cost the original owner thousands and thousands of dollars even in the 1960s.
As our country reached the turn of the 20th century, many industrialists looked back on handmade heirloom antiques as their guide. Indeed, they saw great design and Colonial ingenuity.
Copying Colonial styles, certain vintage furniture companies took things a step further and aimed to use incredible age old techniques. They trained woodworkers, finishers and joiners in factory settings. Of course, they managed to bring handcrafting and technology together in order to produce furniture on a mass scale. Thus, fine furniture was born.
High End Furniture from these companies continues to provide value and enjoyment to people all across the country. We can’t imagine our home without our vintage Ethan Allen table, or our cherished Kittinger buffet. Vintage furniture can give a home a very lived-in feeling, or it can set a very elegant formal home.
Best Vintage Furniture Brands
Below is a brief list of our favorite and most reliable vintage furniture brands to look for! (In no particular order…)
- Baker Furniture
- Bernhardt Furniture
- Ethan Allen Furniture
- Henkel Harris Furniture
- Henredon Furniture
- Pulaski Furniture
- Stickley Furniture
- Thomasville Furniture
Vintage Furniture Manufacturers
Throughout our years in the business, we have heard stories from people who worked in these vintage furniture factories, at the showrooms and even in the delivery departments. Indeed, many of these furniture manufacturers were located within a hundred miles of our home. The stories often have more than a note of nostalgia. Often, it is mixed with a feeling of true sadness that these companies had to close or faced bankruptcy.
Fortunately, the memory of these incredible companies lives on in their virtually indestructible products. This blog explores our passion for these beautiful creations and the company stories that make them equally great. We sincerely hope that the stories here excite and inspire you, and help you learn about vintage furniture from the 20th century.