Vintage Furniture or more importantly, our love of Vintage Retro Antique Furniture is the reason we got involved in the industry back in 2007 - oh if you didn't realise, we have been in this game for quite a while and have gained a wealth of knowledge and experience which we would like to share with you. We will try to break this page down into sections which will allow you to gain an insight into what makes us buy the things we buy, how we identify Vintage Furniture and some tips on selling it - after all the majority of our customers resell our products at a profit! What are the British Furniture Periods? Hey us Brits are good at compartmentalising things, and identifying furniture ages as you can guess is all centred around our Monarchy - take these periods right upto the end of King Edward VII 1558-1603 – Elizabeth I – Elizabethan Furniture 1603-1625 – James I – Jacobean Furniture 1625-1649 – Charles I – Carolean Furniture 1649-1660 – Commonwealth – Cromwellian Furniture 1660-1685 – Charles II – Restoration Furniture 1685-1689 – James II – Restoration Furniture 1689-1694 – William & Mary – William & Mary Furniture 1694-1702 – William III – William III Furniture 1702-1714 – Anne – Queen Anne Furniture 1714-1727 – George I – Early Georgian Furniture 1727-1760 – George II – Early Georgian Furniture 1760-1800 – George III – Late Georgian Furniture 1800-1820 – George III – Regency Furniture 1820-1830 – George IV – Regency Furniture 1830-1837 – William IV – William IV Furniture 1837-1901 – Victoria – Victorian Furniture 1901-1910 – Edward VII – Edwardian Furniture
What is Vintage Furniture? I guess this all depends on who you ask. You see if you believe everything you read on eBay or some of the self professed and sometimes over enthusiastic sellers, Vintage Furniture can be used to describe a piece of furniture bought a few years ago - mainly because the piece may have the look of an older piece - when in reality it came out of a Furniture Factory in Guangdong but they use the term to help shift stock as it's somewhat of a buzzword now. "Vintage" is a colloquialism commonly used to refer to all old styles of clothing of between 30 - 50 years old, however over the years and with the sudden rise of the trendy set and their hipster clothing, home brewed ales and artisan bakery products - we now use the Vintage Furnitureterm to describe any older furniture so the term is somewhat blurred. Unlike Antique Furniture where the industry standard is at least 100 years old, Vintage Furniture tends to be from about 1920-1950. In reality if you are my age (1970's), it's the furniture your Nana had at home thats was passed to your parents when she got sick of looking at it, then you had to endure it untill you promised your parents you would stop drawing on the sideboard!
Ok now I'm confused, what's Mid Century Furniture or Retro Furniture? You're confused, you should try writing this! Mid-century modern (MCM) is an American design movement in interior, product, graphic design, architecture, and urban development that was popular from roughly 1945 to 1969 - The term was used descriptively as early as the mid-1950s and was defined as a design movement by Cara Greenberg in her 1984 book Mid-Century Modern: Furniture of the 1950s. It is now recognized by scholars and museums worldwide as a significant design movement. Relating this to the UK market we use the terms Mid Century and Retro for this period - this is the stuff which is currently in your parents house if they were trendy in the late 1960-1970's - just as I was brought into the world - in fact I remember a significant fall from a Teak E Gomme Sideboard which hurt like hell! The world is obsessed with Mid Century Retro Furniture at the moment as this was the period UK furniture manufacturers turned to Danish designers to help funk up the ever boring furniture market. Just google this period and you will see designers such as Hans Wegner who was famous for the iconic Peacock Chairs, Frits Henningsen who used exotic woods to copy early British designs with a modern twist, Finn Juhlwho was famous for the Glove Cabinet - a design which is copied still to this day, Arne Vodder who experimented with Rosewood and vibrant colours to make icons pieces, Børge Mogensen who played with simple designs which are as popular now as they were back in the 1950's, Arne Jacobsen who is famed for the ever popular and eye waveringly expensive Egg Chairs - designs which are still going strong today, Ib Kofod-Larsen who was the designer of the well known Elizabeth Chair
Vintage Home Stores is one of the leading suppliers of Vintage Furniture Antique Furniture and Quality Used Furniture to the UK markets. Our delivery is amongst the cheapest in the country and all items are in stock ready to go.
Be sure to check us out on www.vintagehomestores.co.uk and also on our socials Facebook and Instagram.