The Antique Victorian Furniture Blog

There is an article today in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about a wonderful Victorian farmhouse located in Kohlsville, WI. A woman named Cindy Livingston Tobin and her husband purchased the home back in 1989.

Mrs. Tobin seems to have had Victorian tastes in her blood, or perhaps in this day we should say in her genetic makeup. When she was 12 years old, her parents allowed her to decorate her room in the style of her choosing. Her choice was Victorian. This was a sophisticated choice for a girl of that age living in the late sixties, especially given that her parents remained firm about putting shag carpet in the room!

Today the Tobin’s farmhouse is thoroughly decorated with antique Victorian furniture and other Victorian decor. In fact, the television is one of the only modern pieces to be found in the house.

The Tobins put an enormous amount of effort into decorating the home for the Christmas season. They place a Christmas tree in every room. They hang wreaths and set up numerous statuettes of Santa. Mrs. Tobin explains that the Victorian era popularized the Christmas tree and other decorations.

The article provides a nice little picture gallery of the home with enlargeable photos. I do wish that they would have asked Mrs. Tobin to tell us about the antique Victorian furniture she chose for the home. I suspect she could share quite a bit of insight. You’ll see some of her Victorian furniture in the photos.

Click here to read about this delightful Victorian farmhouse.

Technorati Tags: Antique, Christmas, Farmhouse, Furniture, Photography, Santa, Tree, Victorian

The New York Times has just run an article on shopping for antiques in Atlanta, GA and surrounding areas. The article gives a lot of information on a large number of antiquing destinations. It also gives some suggestions for restaurants and hotels if you decide that a trip to the area is worth your while.

In Buckhead, a trendy neighborhood close to downtown, look for Bennett Street and its “upscale antique shops and art galleries.” A large store called the Stalls has 60 dealers, and right now there’s a 19th century French walnut buffet in there somewhere going for $4,500.

Want even more variety? How about 2,400 antique booths on the second weekend of each month. You’ll find them at the Atlanta Expos Centers near the airport.

Let’s see, what else? Traveling east of town you can find antiques in the tiny town of Rutledge. Then keep going to Madison, a town frozen in time, full of restored antebellum homes. This sounds like a good place to hunt for Victorian furniture. Check into Antiques on the Square. They’ve got an American walnut armoire, Renaissance Revival, circa 1870 for $1,795.

Have a look at the article here. There’s a whole lot more, and it’s an entertaining read even if you can’t make it to Atlanta.

Technorati Tags: 19th Century, Antiques, Armoire, Atlanta, Buffet, French, Furniture, Renaissance, Revival, Victorian, Walnut

Here’s an article from the Knoxville News Sentinel containing some gloomy information. The writer, Joe Rosson, is responding to a question about the value of two cabinets.

It’s not so much what he says about the cabinets but about the current state of the antique market that makes the article worth reading. He tells us in the first place that pieces made of oak have lost a lot of value in the last decade or so and that some collectors have been taken by surprise as a result.

He also gives a word of warning to owners of antique Victorian furniture in particular. According to a “nationally respected antiques specialist,” Victorian furniture is losing its value rapidly and will probably never recover because of changing tastes.

The word “never” is a strong one, especially where tastes are concerned. And what are we to make of this in light of my post on October 25 linking to an article calling antique Victorian furniture an upwardly mobile investment? Are we getting some mixed signals?

I’ll keep my eyes open for you.

You can find the article here.

Technorati Tags: Antique, Antiques, Furniture, Oak, Value, Victorian

First lady Laura Bush has hosted a 90-minute documentary premiering tonight on the History Channel at 9 p.m EST. It’s called “The White House: Behind Closed Doors.” I just came across an AP article about it, and it sounds like something of interest for us.

The accompanying photo shows Mrs. Bush talking to Leigh and Leslie Keno from the “Antiques Roadshow.” And the article tells us that President Bush had the Treaty Room, which he used as his personal office, refurnished with pieces from the Grant era. Mrs. Bush had misgivings, saying she wasn’t wild about Victorian furniture. But he insisted on having Grant’s furniture. Well, good for him!

Here’s the article. I hope some of you will get the chance to watch the show tonight. I have other obligations, but I assume there will be other opportunities to see it.

Technorati Tags: Antique, Antiques, Bush, Furniture, Victorian, White House

I chanced upon an article in the Detroit Free Press about a man from Detroit named Michael Hartt who opened an antique shop after working for 20 years in the automotive industry.

The article doesn’t deal specifically with antique Victorian furniture, but it makes some interesting points about antiques in general. For instance, even in Detroit the high end of antiques is booming, despite the economy. Estate sales are especially lucrative. And again, the number of antiques that are moving through eBay is amazing. Mr. Hartt says that eBay accounts for 25% of his trade.

Take a look at the article here.

Technorati Tags: Antiques, Furniture, Online, Selling

Here’s a passage from Wilkie Collins, the great Victorian author of detective fiction. This is from a short story called “A Traveler’s Story of A Terribly Strange Bed,” originally published in 1852. The room described here is in a gambling house in Paris, but that strange bed is very British. It has a sinister functionality, too, which you’ll discover if you read the story.

“I raised myself on my elbow, and looked about the room–which was brightened by a lovely moonlight pouring straight through the window–to see if it contained any pictures or ornaments that I could at all clearly distinguish. While my eyes wandered from wall to wall, a remembrance of Le Maistre’s delightful little book, “Voyage autour de ma Chambre,” occurred to me. I resolved to imitate the French author, and find occupation and amusement enough to relieve the tedium of my wakefulness, by making a mental inventory of every article of furniture I could see, and by following up to their sources the multitude of associations which even a chair, a table, or a wash-hand stand may be made to call forth.

In the nervous unsettled state of my mind at that moment, I found it much easier to make my inventory than to make my reflections, and thereupon soon gave up all hope of thinking in Le Maistre’s fanciful track–or, indeed, of thinking at all. I looked about the room at the different articles of furniture, and did nothing more.

There was, first, the bed I was lying in; a four-post bed, of all things in the world to meet with in Paris–yes, a thorough clumsy British four-poster, with the regular top lined with chintz–the regular fringed valance all round–the regular stifling, unwholesome curtains, which I remembered having mechanically drawn back against the posts without particularly noticing the bed when I first got into the room. Then there was the marble-topped wash-hand stand, from which the water I had spilled, in my hurry to pour it out, was still dripping, slowly and more slowly, on to the brick floor. Then two small chairs, with my coat, waistcoat, and trousers flung on them. Then a large elbow-chair covered with dirty-white dimity, with my cravat and shirt collar thrown over the back. Then a chest of drawers with two of the brass handles off, and a tawdry, broken china inkstand placed on it by way of ornament for the top. Then the dressing-table, adorned by a very small looking-glass, and a very large pincushion. Then the window–an unusually large window. Then a dark old picture, which the feeble candle dimly showed me. It was a picture of a fellow in a high Spanish hat, crowned with a plume of towering feathers. A swarthy, sinister ruffian, looking upward, shading his eyes with his hand, and looking intently upward–it might be at some tall gallows at which he was going to be hanged. At any rate, he had the appearance of thoroughly deserving it.”

I absolutely love the remark about the “multitude of associations.” Do you notice how the ornate beauty of the sentences written by Victorian authors closely resembles the beauty of antique Victorian furniture?

Technorati Tags: Bed, Chair, Chest, Drawers, Furniture, Literature, Mystery, Table, Victorian, Wilkie Collins

Have you heard of the Victorian bathing machine? Evidently it was all the rage back in the day when modesty prevailed at the beach.

The Victorian bathing machine was a little hut that was wheeled along the beach. At appropriate spots it would be backed into the water. Women would enter the hut through the door in front, change into their bathing outfits, then exit through a rear door, where a cradle was waiting to lower them into the ocean. The point was to allow them to bathe safely and unobserved, especially by the young men armed with telescopes!

Click here to read an article in the Telegraph about the plans to restore one of these remarkable machines in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. There’s a delightful old photo with the article that shows a man and a little girl taking a look at one of them.

Technorati Tags: Bathing, Doors, Modesty, Restoration, Victorian

I am in awe of people who have the knowledge, energy, and other resources to restore homes that look to me beyond repair. In my quest to find the best material on antique Victorian furniture, I came across a site put up by a couple named Craig and Yvonne, devoted to the restoration of their 1875 Eastlake Victorian home.

It’s one of the best sites of its kind that I’ve seen. It goes room by room with countless photos and has a great mouse-over feature that allows you to see many of the areas in their pre-restoration state.

The house has 38 Victorian doors, and we are treated to a step-by-step gallery of photos as one of the doors goes from bleak to beautiful. Hat’s off to these two, both for the incredible work they’ve done on their home and for the exceptional site they’ve built to share it with us.

As far as furniture goes, you’ll see some nice pieces in the reception hall and the dining room. I’d love to get more of their thoughts on furnishing the home now that they’ve done such an amazing job of restoration.

Click here to see Craig and Yvonne’s restored Victorian home.

Technorati Tags: Doors, Eastlake, Furniture, Home, House, Restoration, Victorian

Back on October 23, I posted about an article written by antique collector Ben Mijuskovic. In that article, which appeared in the Maine Antique Digest, Ben gave a short history of antique Victorian furniture in America and then told the story of a particular Victorian chair that he and his wife had found. If you haven’t read that one, you can find it here.

Ben has since called my attention to another of his articles, which came out in Antiques and Fine Art. Like the previous article, this one is about a Victorian chair, the “loveliest Victorian chair” as the title tells us. Also like the previous one, this article is on a higher intellectual plane than your average writing on antiques.

What I didn’t know about Ben when I wrote that first post is that he’s a professor of philosophy as well as a collector of Victorian antiques. His expertise in philosophy stretches from the ancient to the modern. He does research into ethics, existentialism, and the philosophy of religion and could tell us a thing or two about Hume, Hegel, and Husserl.

We’re just fortunate enough that Ben is also captivated by antique Victorian furniture and enjoys sharing his experiences with it. The depth of Ben’s insight is evident in every sentence he writes. In this article he relates how he and his wife found an antique Victorian chair at their favorite antique shop in San Francisco. In keeping with the theme of mystery that has lately crept into The Antique Victorian Furniture Blog, the chair defied identification. Ben and his wife promptly bought the chair and then set out to get some answers.

I don’t want to give away too much here. It’s Ben’s mystery, and he tells a charming story. I’ll just remark that there’s a puzzling four-point star theme to the chair and a “delicately painted” Grecian urn that give Ben the opportunity to discuss a famous episode from the Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid, the Greek priestesses known as sibyls, and the god Apollo.

That’s all I’ll say. Not a word about that sliver of wood that provided the final bit of evidence.

Thanks for this one, Ben!

Click here to treat yourself to this wonderful article.

Technorati Tags: Antique, Antiques, Chair, Furniture, Mystery, Shop, Victorian

I truly enjoy posts written by people who are excited about finding just the right pieces of antique Victorian furniture for their homes.

Here is one by a woman in Wisconsin who is remodeling the 1898 home that she and her family are living in. She had been looking for an antique Victorian sofa for years but had never found one she could afford. Finally she came across this one on Craigslist “for a really great price.” She tells us that it’s from the late 1800s and seems to belong in the house. Note the comment on the date though.

You can find the post with photos of the Victorian sofa here. You’ll see why she’s excited about the piece. It’s a great find. I’ll add that her blog overall is well worth the visit, and I myself plan to return.

On another note, this is the second post I’ve written about someone who was thrilled to find the perfect piece of antique Victorian furniture on Craigslist. The first was about a woman who had just found an elegant suite there: a Victorian sofa, love seat and chair.

If you yourself are searching for that perfect Victorian antique, you may want to take a look over there.

Technorati Tags: 19th Century, Craigslist, Home, Remodeling, Sofa, Victorian