What style of furniture did your grand-mother have?
I believe that the popularity of modern design is due to the popular design for your grand-parents. Depending on your age you look back to what your grand-parents either had or wanted, Victorian, American Colonial, Modern (or what we might call mid-century). If you lived the style as a child (what your parents' liked) it's probably not your current favorite. So, vote on what style you like and if you were emotionally swayed to this style through Granny. Tell us why you love this style.
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Parents: Danish mid-century modern (lots of teak and natural-weave fabrics)
Me: Craftsman, Shaker (antiques with clean, simple lines), and Transitional.
Does that fit your thesis? I actually love my parents' style, just not for my 1920's house, and I don't like fussy Victorian. I didn't vote in your poll since you didn't have an option that really fit me.
Midmo wasn't in my house, colonial was, and except for maybe a Willard grandfather clock, that style frankly belongs in the century whence it came.
By the beginning of the 80's, my mom was a world traveler and that broke us out of our colonial conundrum and brought us into a more classic and eclectic look that would still look nearly current today.
I come from a long line of BRCA1 loss -- because of our genetic predisposition to breast and ovarian cancer, most of the women in the family before me didn't live past their 40's. So I never knew my grandmother, although the house she raised my mom in speaks volumes about my mom's good taste -- excepting her earliest years as a first time nester keeping up with the Jones's early American thing.
Being the first in my family to test for this gene, I felt a responsibility to research, find, and contact long lost cousins who may be blindsided by cancer. It led to finding out a great deal about my grandmother's family, and when a cousin emailed a photo of my great grandmother's living room, I thought, my goodness, that has the lines of my empire couch, there's a pattern not unlike my rug, and I have botanical prints just like those in the master bath. And I never even knew my grand or great grandmother. But I do know they had style! My grandmother is on the far right, on the arm of the sofa.
I'm a fan of old and eclectic with a modern edge, but have to say I can't live without a touch of Empire.
My parents (style ?) was a bit of this and some of that. I think when they came to Canada they shunned anything to do with antiques. I came home one day, and my father had chopped up a beautiful rocking chair for firewood! Then he hand built a rock fireplace, it had nothing to do with the style of the home or anything else for that matter, but he loved it! I remember one night there was an earthquake and he stood in front of it with his arms outstretched, as if to hold it together. Ha!
Me? I love cottages, bright airy, eclectic, full of interesting collected pieces and especially the books!
I went through what I call the "cutesy country" phase when I was in my 20's and lived in a tiny cottage on a farm. But thankfully, emerged unscathed and have now settled into an eclectic/farmhouse Craftsman style that is uncluttered, simple, antiques and good craftsmanship. And practical. I have other interests in my life too and simply can't justify the amount of money it would take to to equip this simple home with the kinds of exhorbitant trappings I see in so many houses. I don't want to become a slave to my house! (Though, right now, I feel a little slavelike as I've spent every weekend and evening lately with a hammer or paintbrush in my hand!)
I've enjoyed reading the many posts and especially that of barnhartgallery.
in answer to your question...my mother used much of a family inheritance to buy Ethan Allen bedroom and dining room furniture...which was handed down and incorporated in both my and my brother's decor....and the Pall Mall burns on the tops...are just memories now.
Susan Mills, thank you, likewise, and a link to info about genetics if you haven't already gone this route:
http://www.facingourrisk.org/index.php
It sounds like that was a very interesting time for you. Have you read the book House As Mirror of Self? Many people's relationships with their home are firmly rooted in something experienced or ingrained from their childhood, can be anything really. It's a very worthwhile read, and has taken my work to another level.
http://www.amazon.com/House-As-Mirror-Self-Exploring/dp/0892541245
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Susan thanks for the book recommendation. My own home is certainly a reflection of my and my family's personal paths and passions. I want everyone to have that.
My parents had a lot of Danish Modern stuff along with some Victorian bits and pieces my mother picked up cheap at "junk stores" and refinished.
I live in an 1881 house. I definitely tend towards the grandparent end of the taste spectrum but that's what works with the house best anyway. I have a number of their pieces in my house.
My most favorite style is English Arts and Crafts/Aesthetic: William Morris, CFA Voysey, and that sort of thing-- which is less stripped-down and a little more fanciful than American Arts and Crafts. I wish I could afford some Voysey wallpaper. (such as http://trustworth.com/wallpaper.shtml ) Voysey is To Die For. Danish Modern leaves me cold.
As an adult I was allowed to have her cabbage rose barkcloth drapes out of the box headed to goodwill, and designed my living room around them. When she finally went to a nursing home, her children donated the rest of the "junk" to thrift stores; the drapes and memories are all I have left of her, but her influence is everywhere in my house..right down to the formica kitchen table and hothouse plants. I have collected other people's grandparent's things in an effort to replicate the warmth and magic of a visit to her house, as it was one of the best possible places on earth to be.
Your mother's story brings me to mind of something more. It seems to me that our connection to our homes and our history is paramount to a richly led life. As exciting as it is to update things every ten years or so, as we are constantly urged to do,the practice chips away at our familial sense of continuity, as surely as death does, and we should be mindful of that price to pay in exchange for being temporarily on trend. Sometimes a history needs to be erased (especially if it is borrowed from the colonials) , but perhaps as often, it craves the layering of pneumonic devices that our homes can provide to make us feel content. For that reason, all houses that have been lived in for long periods of time have a special glory, easily accessed by a child's imagination, and likely to be emulated whether consciously or no.