News

Our latest catalog has been hitting mailboxes over the past week just in time for the back-to-school shopping season. Click here for a look at the digital version. If you did not receive a copy please reach out to join our mailing list or to request additional copies. Several pieces have already sold, so don't drag your feet! New stock is arriving all the time, so feel free to contact us if you are looking for something specific.

When I was growing up, a dresser was the piece of furniture in your bedroom that held your clothes, basically a bank of drawers raised on feet or a low plinth. When I began working for Jayne, fresh out of college, I had to re-learn some of my vocabulary. What I once called a “dresser,” I now know as a chest of drawers. In the world of antique British furniture, a “dresser” is the ancestor to and country cousin of the formal sideboard. It is called a dresser because the serving surface was used to dress the food. Since they were created for more modest homes, dressers are not as deep as sideboards which had to accommodate the more elaborate serving apparatus of a formal dinner service. These proportions—long, but shallow and of serving height—are what make dressers so useful and versatile in a modern interior. Many of our clients still use them as sideboards in dining rooms, but they also work well in long hallways, behind sofas, as focal pieces in living spaces below art or with a rack filled with colorful porcelain or whatever collection you might wish to display.

Dressers are one of our favorite forms. Within their basic framework can be found a world of variety. Commonly known as Welsh Dressers, many of them were indeed created in Wales, and possibly originated there. However, they were created throughout England as well and certain forms are associated with certain counties. While many of them (not all) began life with racks to store plates and hang cups, the racks and bases were often separated over the course of their lifetime. See below for several examples from our stock both past and present.

Dressers can be solid to the ground or "enclosed" to maximize storage:

Lots of them stand on legs of differing types such as cabriole legs:

Or straight, square stock legs:

Or sometimes silhouette legs:

Turned legs are some of the most common type (although it is unusual to see the back legs also turned as in this example):

Sometimes those turned legs are connected by a shelf, known as a potboard:

The more refined ones might have adornments such as a shaped apron and cross-banding:

Or maybe a bit of inlay

Some of them have been dressed up with interesting architectural features:

Some enclosed dressers have an opening in the center charmingly referred to as a dogpen:

While the overwhelming majority of dressers are built of oak, it is exciting to find others in more unusual timber. We currently have this gem in fruitwood (possibly pear?):

This primitive dresser from our sold archive was particularly unusual for it’s yew timber:

And this one in highly figured ash will always remain one of our favorites:

We have a continuously rotating stock of dressers in inventory or on the way. They seem to be as popular with our clients as they are with us, so if you see one you like, be sure to contact us before it's gone.

We were honored to be asked to participate in the Southern Living Idea House 2023 in Franklin, TN just outside of Nashville. This marks three consecutive years that we have loaned furniture for the project. Laura Hodges designed a relaxed and welcoming interior. She always keeps an eye on sustainability, an ethos that utilizes lots of antique and vintage furniture, including several pieces from our inventory.

Click here to see a scanned version of the print article

Can you spot the following pieces from our stock? All the items are now back in the shop, so if you want to own a piece of the Idea House, give us a call.

A provincial tripod table with burr oak veneered top

A Charles II period oak side table

A sycamore "cheese top" cricket table

Thank you, thank you, thank you to House Beautiful for listing us as one of the best home stores in America in their October/November 2022 issue. Wow! We are so honored!

We are so grateful to Charlotte Harris Lucas for including us in the Southern Living Idea House 2022, a relaxed getaway in River Dunes, NC. For this house, we contributed six pieces, including the Anglo-Indian satinwood chest of drawers in the foyer.

Click here to read the full article:

Some of the other pieces we loaned were:

A pair of French fruitwood console tables:

An Anglo-Indian teak occasional table:

A pair of Sheraton period card tables:

And a provincial mahogany serving table with Greek key motif:

In case you aren't on our mailing list or didn't pick them up at one of our recent shows, here are digital versions of our last two catalogs published in 2022. We have lots of new merchandise arriving all the time, so keep your eyes open for another catalog coming in the spring of 2023.

Click to view:

Click to view:

Oops! We did it again. We went almost half a year without updating our blog. But seriously, if you want to keep up with our day-to-day (week-to-week?) activities, you should follow Lori on Instagram. If you're more of the "old fashioned" type who prefers blogs, here is a little catch-up on some flattering press we've received over the past couple years.

First up: we were thrilled to be invited by our design crush Sarah Bartholomew to participate in the Southern Living Idea House 2021. Located just up the road on a beautiful lot overlooking the Ohio River, Colonial Greek Revival never felt so fresh and modern. We loaned twenty-two pieces from our inventory which were interspersed among lots of cozy upholstery and contemporary art.

As Sarah says: "Bring one piece of old into every room." Or more is fine, too, if you feel so inclined. The finished product was inviting and imminently livable, perfect for either a young family or empty nesters looking for the feel of a pastoral setting yet just minutes from downtown Louisville. Read the full article here.

Many of our favorite pieces were selected, some of which are still available. If you'd like to bring a little piece of the Idea House into your own home, have a look at the items below.

 A rare 18th Century Windsor settee

 Bastiaan Stoopendaal buffalo print

Pair of Sheraton period bedside cupboards

Painted step commode

Unusual primitive three-legged chair/stool

Well, in spite of our best intentions, we've once again been negligent in keeping our blog updated. I see it's been 8 months since our last post. For those of you interested in keeping tabs on us, Lori is much more diligent about posting to our Instagram account, so that is always the best way to see our latest news and finds.

For those of you not on Instagram, here is a quick catch-up. Since all of our antique shows for the past year were cancelled, we pivoted to marketing our new pieces through a couple print catalogs which we distributed in the last quarter of 2020. In case you missed them, digital versions can be found here:

and here:

If you'd like hard copies of these catalogs, feel free to drop us a line.

We do try to keep our website as current as our schedule allows. To see the most recently added stock, check our New Stock page from time to time.

On the personal front, we took advantage of the extended time off the road to finish a portion of our home's basement. It has been a much appreciated space for the family to partake of all the additional media viewing we've been doing since being stuck at home. It seems a number of our designer-clients and private clients have also been similarly busy. Quarantine has brought on a desire to make the home a true refuge of peace and joy. We've been happy to help on several re-models, re-vamps, and new builds over the past months. If you have an itch to upgrade some pieces or re-do a particular space, just give us a call to see how we can help.

Now that the vaccine distribution is in full swing, we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. That means a return to the antique shows which have been such a huge part of our business for the past 30 years. While The Philadelphia Show will be an online-only affair this year, we're happy to add to our calendar the returns of the Lauritzen Gardens Show in Omaha and the San Francisco Fall Antique Show as our first in-person shows since the pandemic began a year ago.

We look forward to seeing you all again very soon whether it be in your own hometown or here at our shop.

Think back to May 2019. It seems a lifetime ago, but I think more than a few of us would love to time-warp back to that moment. No one had ever heard of COVID-19. News outlets were cooing over the birth of Prince Archie. In our trade, the antique show circuit was rolling along as always. In preparation for the Merchandise Mart show in Chicago, we were mailing tickets to our clients in the area. Well, fast forward to the present. We were reminded of that simpler time and all the water that has passed under the bridge since when we receive the letter pictured above in our mailbox.

Check out that postmark! May 2019! This letter was just returned to us after 14 months in postal purgatory! We must apologize to the intended recipient who never received their complimentary ticket to the show. You missed a beautiful event.

We must say we love the USPS. The typical service provided is remarkable value. However, at times, it can be just a little too easy to poke a little fun. The imagination runs wild trying to picture what this poor little letter must have gone through over the past year.

We hope all our clients and colleagues are staying safe and healthy out there. Until we meet again....