Southampton – Buying antiques for your home need not be difficult if you consider the following before making a purchase.
Why Is This A Good Idea for You?
Rare and beautiful objects never go out of style, while good craftsmanship speaks for itself. Furthermore, it’s difficult to beat the charm and interest a good antique or vintage piece brings to any setting. When you add the fact that an antique grows in value over time, the initial investment is money well spent. The craftsmanship of earlier times created truly beautiful furniture that can’t be replicated in the same way today that is anywhere near cost effective. Here is an opportunity to make a wise purchase for both love and money.
However, as with any significant investment in high quality, it’s important to educate yourself before you take the plunge. It’s a big world with a lot of wonderful antiquities for sale. You need a knowledgeable overview of what you find most appealing. You don’t want to miss an exceptional find because you don’t have a clue about what appeals to you in advance.
In the same way you determined what your personal style is, (and by extension the style of home you want to live in), the same process is used here. Antique furniture can be segregated into four broad categories; English, European, American and Far Eastern. You might begin with an investigation into each category to distinguish the features that are consistent to the category and which of these you prefer.
Browsing with an adventurous and open-minded outlook as well as a scholarly approach, can net you unexpected “found” treasures. You could start out looking for an English side table but find yourself transfixed by the beauty of a pair of French Fauteuil (Fauteuil are otherwise known as “chairs”).
Fortunately, the pursuit of your higher education can easily start near home with the fine antique stores in the area. Take a field trip. Ask questions. Good dealers want to share their knowledge. It’s in their best interest that you are a well-informed buyer who understands the quality, the market and the value of their inventory. There is no substitute for seeing and handling real furniture and accessories. It’s the best way to learn. You can’t appreciate the difference between a hand-rubbed wood finish that has the patina of age, and the standard wood finish you see on most new furniture, unless you see for yourself first-hand.
You can also broaden your horizons by attending lectures and seminars. Pore over auction catalogs and go to auction viewing rooms. They’re great places to see, handle and learn about antique furniture as well.
While the best advice is always to buy the highest quality you can afford, a fine antique need not be museum quality (with the consequent price tag) to find a place in your home. There is such a thing as an excellent and reasonably priced antique.
Another avenue to explore is high quality reproductions. Chris Mead of English Country Antiques & Home Furnishings (26 Snake Hollow Road, Bridgehampton, 631-537-0606) says that while his store specializes in what he calls “usable antiques” such as small tables, or chests of drawers, there are times when it’s neither practical nor cost effective to wait for the perfect specimen to arrive on the market.
Says, Mead, “This is particularly true with dining tables. The table of your dreams may not only cost roughly $10,000, but if you do find it eventually, there’s an excellent chance that it simply won’t be a workable size.” In a case such as this, a reproduction of the table you crave can be made to order, with workmanship, finishes and patina so fine, only a seasoned expert would be able to distinguish it from the original.
Developing Your Own Designer Vision
You did your homework, legwork, and (Glorious Day!) finally, you found “IT.” You love it, but where do you put it? There are two schools of thought on how to incorporate antiques with your current acquisitions. One school says, “Think in terms of contrast and juxtaposition.” This concept works best if you use pieces from different time periods. For example, what if you placed a very modern steel and leather chair from the 1950s next to an antique Japanese Tansu? The design quality of both stands out in high relief.
Pulling the above approach off so it looks like you know what you’re doing is tricky. It can backfire to the point of complete discord. The idea is to create a composition in three-dimensional space. Re-imagine what you see, so that all you are looking at is the color, shape, size, texture and/or design of the pieces you have chosen for your setting. Put everything in place and ask yourself if your vignette looks balanced. Does the scale work? A small delicate item sitting next to a massive heavy object just looks wrong. Do all the assigned furniture and accessories work in relationship to each other, or is any one piece placed too far out of the picture? Do you have a range of light, medium and dark tones? Is there a color punch somewhere?
When you work this way, the provenance of each item becomes coincidental. An unexpected combination of elements, and a mix of style “opposites” can elevate the aesthetic level from the “nicely decorated but ordinary” to “A Really Great Looking Room.”
The other school of thought takes a more deliberately harmonious stand. Start with all of the suggestions stated above regarding creating a composition of your furniture arrangement. These suggestions are the “building blocks” you should always use. From here, take the basic framework further and look at the specific details of how things look together. Look for repetition or similarity in shape, size, curve, angle, color and/or design. How do the pieces reference each other? For example, you might have two lamps that are different but the same height and/or material. They could work flanking a sofa on either side if they both have the same type of lampshade. How about patterns that relate to each other? This visual process is how great designers manage to mix the best with the common to get a fabulous result.
Don’t neglect to think outside of the box. Did you know that coffee tables didn’t even exist before the 1920s? Be creative. That fabulous antique chest you just spied could also be used as a coffee table, and your living room will be more interesting for the addition.
A historically accurate room that looks and feels like a time capsule isn’t a living space; you want an environment that’s out of the ordinary because of judicious use of carefully selected, unique and special furniture and accessories. The final goal is to create rooms that you love to be in, the place you call “Your Home.” No decorating scheme should be so rigidly constructed that it can’t accommodate a “found treasure,” even if it takes some time for the “found treasure” to land in the place where it will fit in the best.
In the end, the provenance of an antique doesn’t matter as much as how it appeals to you. “More than any other consideration, the most important thing is to buy what pleases you aesthetically,” says Nancy Toon of Hound Hill Design. “Rooms are meant to be lived in with objects you love”.
Source : www.hamptons.com
