Antique Chinese Furniture

Chinese Antiques and Your Decor:

Chinese antique furniture is the new vogue in home decor fitting seamlessly into both modern and heritage interiors. Now you can take the best of traditional Chinese style elements and combine them with modern styles and concepts to create the perfect rooms for living in beauty, harmony and prosperity. The simplicity of the Chinese style basic furniture such as high-backed officials chairs, sloping stile cabinets and long tables made of wood fitted together without the use of nails or screws is awesome. These pieces, so rich in culture and blended together with your own decor can create for you the “Wow” factor and become a wonderful conversation piece in your home.

Construction and Carpentry:

Chinese Antique Furniture is exceptional for its precise integration. Every piece of wood is calculated to interlock in a seamless way that not only provides structural strength but also enhances the beauty of the design. This is evident by the complex nature of many different joints used in the construction of furniture and in many cases antiques can be dated by analysing their construction technique. There are several basic joints used in the construction of Antique Chinese Furniture including the mortise-and-tenon, mitre, dovetail and tongue-and-groove. The use of metal nails and glue in joints was considered unacceptable; however nails were sometimes used for decorative purposes.

Restore or not restore – That is the Question:

Controversy surrounds the restoration of Chinese Antiques. Should furniture be refinished to look as it might have looked the day it left the carpenters workshop a hundred or more years ago?

Both collectors and experts disagree, but it is widely accepted that most buyers are looking for a decorative piece to accent their home and need it to blend in with their decor. They want furniture that looks clean and polished and not as if it has been just dropped off the back of a truck from Shanxi Province. Most furniture has broken components and stains however professional restorers take exceptional care to carry out repairs and retain the patina of the piece thus accenting its historical significance and beauty.

The goal of restoration is clear: To return the piece to the condition that would seem to be in character with its estimated age. No one advocates leaving furniture in its “as found” condition. Surely this would deprive the world of what is hiding below its grey and dismal exterior.