History of Amish Furniture

The Amish lead a simple life; one that is shorn of artifice, ostentation, and unnecessary fripperies. Their reliance on mod cons and mechanizations that we take for granted in our lives, is very limited indeed. They live their lives in the way that it was lived a long time ago. Simple, unadorned clothes and traditional means of transport such as horse drawn carriages mean that the Amish lead a simple and basic life; much like communities lived over a hundred years ago.

Even the means of livelihood that the Amish generally practice are those such as farming and carpentry; which can still be carried out the old fashioned way, without mechanization and use of modern devices.

So you could say that the Amish lifestyle actually predisposes these communities to traditional arts such as furniture making. The fact that many of the Amish still make their furniture in the way that they did a century ago is a testament to this.

Amish handcrafted furniture is still made using their famous dovetail joinery, and by using mortise and tenon joinery. These methods help to fuse together pieces of wood together seamlessly without use of nails and screws.

Then there is the fact that the Amish make sure that they use only the best quality hard wood for the furniture that they make. Only the best quality wood with high quality grain is used. Plus the fact that it is quarter sawn makes the furniture even more superior. The open air seasoning and kiln drying are other procedures that add to the beauty and the strength of the wood.

A lot of the work is done by hand because the Amish traditions forbid use of mechanical tools. This means that the process of furniture making is largely done using old fashioned tools and the finishing in particular, is done by hand. The sanding and polishing is done by hand as the master craftsmen of yore would have done it.

The Amish have kept alive traditional design styles such as the Mission style furniture retaining the beauty, simplicity and functionality of the traditional designs. These techniques and designs never go out of style and they seem to last forever, which is what makes Amish made furniture so highly prized.

Before assembly line furniture, particle board and plywood came along; furniture was made the traditional, loving, old fashioned way. It worked very well for people then and the Amish obviously thought there was no reason to fix something that wasn’t broken!

So to experience the joy of owning an item of furniture that is a beautiful design, of sound construction, and created from the best quality raw materials, you need look no further than Amish furniture!