The hallmark of traditional furniture is its historical influences. Furniture styles that are based on historic design models and that are not contemporary fall under the broad umbrella of traditional. Traditional furnishings designs can hail from eighteenth-century England, the French countryside, or even the exotic lands of the East. Among the most popular traditional styles today are eighteenth-century English, nineteenth-century Neoclassic, French Country, and British Colonial Revival.
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In silhouette, material, and detail, traditional pieces in many ways are familiar to us even though they evoke distant lands. An armoire from Provence might be adapted to the dimensions of today's American home, yet it still echoes the charm of France from centuries ago.
Visual themes can tie varying historic styles together. Because traditional styles span a broader range of cultures than contemporary styles, and are more detailed in their design and ornament, selecting a traditional style seems a complex task. The good news is it's rare today to see a real period room, a décor that is purely devoted to a single historic style like Chippendale or Louis XV. That kind of rigidity simply doesn't fit with the flexibility required by our on-the-go lives.
In mixing different traditional idioms, you can achieve a certain harmony by selecting a single element as a focus. For example, you might want all your wood pieces to be traditional and dark in finish and without much embellishment. That way it doesn't matter if the tables, chairs, and chests are British Colonial Revival, English Regency, or even Victorian.
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