Tips for Decorating With Amish Furniture

When it comes to decorating your home, everyone has a different style. Some prefer a classic, traditional look while others have more modern, minimalist tastes. Some prefer a vintage charm while others would rather of a combination of unique pieces that are full of personality and character.

No matter what how widely our tastes might vary when it comes to home décor, there is one thing on which we can all agree. Everyone loves well-made furniture that will last for years to come. And when you buy furniture for your home, you want to invest in quality pieces that will last you and your house for generations.

If you’re remodeling your house, redecorating just one room or maybe even moving into a brand new home that needs to be furnished, why not give Amish furniture a try?

What Makes Amish Furniture So Special?

Amish furniture is high-quality, long-lasting and well-crafted furniture that can suit any style of home. While it might seem obvious to assume that all Amish furniture is simple, practical and functional, Amish furniture is much more than that.

Amish furniture can come in any shape, size, style or design. When looking at it, the inexperienced eye might not even recognize that the furniture is Amish in origin.

So if there are no unifying characteristics of Amish furniture, you might be wondering what it is that sets Amish furniture apart. What makes it unique in the first place?

The answer to that is the craftsmanship. While many modern pieces of furniture are assembled in a streamlined factory process, Amish furniture is hand-made by skilled craftsman. This furniture isn’t easily identified by any particular trademark style. Rather, Amish furniture is set apart by the pride and dedication that goes into crafting every piece. When you buy Amish furniture, you can be confident that every piece has been excellently crafted from solid hard wood.

Because the Amish avoid modern technological aids in their furniture making processes, every piece is built using traditional carpentry techniques. These carpentry techniques have been passed down through the generations among the Amish. These craftsmen learned from their parents and grandparents how to select the best wood, how to use the wood to get the best use of the grain and how to carefully shape the finest details in the furniture.

When you select Amish furniture for your home, you can always have confidence that the pieces you buy will last for generations to come.

How to Decorate With Amish Furniture

When it comes to decorating with Amish furniture, you’re in luck. Because Amish furniture comes in such a wide variety of shapes, sizes, colors and styles, you’ll be sure to be able to find something you like. No matter what style you like best, there will be something for you.

Amish furniture can come in a wide variety of styles, but there are a few qualities that all pieces are likely to have. While these aren’t hard-and-fast rules, they are characteristics that you’ll find to be fairly consistent across the board with most Amish furniture.

Amish furniture is always crafted from real hardwood. The most common type of hardwood is oak, but other common types include maple and cherry. Oak is the lightest color wood, with maple being a bit darker and cherry having a slightly reddish color.

You’ll also find that most Amish furniture is very simple but elegant. It’s usually built in a very clean, plain design with a lot of straight lines and gentle curves. While some furniture may have extra ornamental and decorative detailing added, the real focus of the furniture is the beautiful wood grain itself.

Some Ideas to Get You Started

When it comes to decorating, it’s a good idea to do a little bit of planning before you begin to buy. Are you looking to make your home more modern or classic? Do you have any existing furniture that you want to try to match? Does the style of your home itself lend itself to any particular decorating style?

There are several common types of design, and while not every Amish furniture piece fits perfectly into one of these categories, they do a pretty good job of capturing most of the popular styles that are available today.

Traditional Amish

This type of furniture is very simple. Think of simple, straight lines and delicate spindled chairs. These will mostly be in natural wood tones and will pair well with other simple furniture or décor.

Shaker Style

This style is characterized by an effortless elegance. Shaker style furniture typically features a lot of straight lines and sophisticated slates running either horizontally or vertically. There might be a lot of spindles in this type of furniture.

Craftsman Style

Craftsman style furniture is a bit heavier than either Amish or Shaker, both in terms of actual weight and in appearance. This style favors larger furniture with a lot of straight clean lines and hefty square shapes.

Old World

These pieces are known for being more ornate. They might feature elegant detailing and sophisticated swirls.

Southwest

This style of furniture is more rugged looking. The pieces tend to be heftier, and there’s a larger focus on the grain of the wood. Again, the focus is more on clean lines than on elaborate decoration.

Decorating can be intimidating, especially if you’re not used to it. However, it can also be a fun and exciting process where you get to let your personality shine out through your house itself. To get you started, we’ve put together a few recommendations from our catalogue. You can use these ideas, or take them as a starting point to mix and match your own combinations. Before you know it, you’ll have designed your very own dream home.

Let’s Look at Some Pieces

Many of our pieces come as part of sets. This helps our pieces to match and enables you to have an easier time when you’re shopping. For example, this elegantly curved bed is part of the Adrianna collection and is perfectly matched with this nightstand, chest of drawers and dresser and mirror.

However, maybe your ideal style is furniture that doesn’t match so closely. If that’s the case, you can always feel free to mix and match furniture from different collections as well. Take a look at some of these examples of furniture that aren’t part of a set, but still complement each other well.

1. This Merlot Bed

This piece has some great strong, clean lines as well as some elegant curves. It’s also got a touch of decoration in the simple yet striking black braid on the headboard and footboard.

You could certainly match it with the nightstand from the same collection. But you could also pair it with this three drawer Chippewa Sleigh nightstand. While they aren’t part of the same collection, the curves in this nightstand echo the curves on the bed, and the rectangular patterns in the footboard play well the drawers of the nightstand.

2. This Brookside Table

This simple table has a delicate, spindles appearance to it. The legs are elegant and have some graceful curves to them. Because of this, it would be ideal to pair it with chairs that are less bulky and more delicate in appearance.

These Cantaberry chairs might be the perfect match. The top of the back has a gentle curve to it, making it a little more decorative, and the back slats and the legs match the more delicate feel of the table.

3. This Arlington Upholstered Chair

This is a great piece for any living room or seating area. It’s a large, square design that immediately makes an impact and catches the eye. To complement this style, consider looking for a coffee table that has a similar blocky, square feeling.

One option might be this Arlington Square Coffee Table. As part of the Arlington set, it has a similar shape and feel to it. They both feel hefty and have a solid, square appearance. Paired together, they might make the perfect statement in your living room.

4. This Bookcase Platform Bed

This is a large, solid wood piece that still manages to not feel bulky because of some of the thinner, clean lines it uses. It also feels very simple, as there’s not a lot of extra ornamentation or design anywhere on it.

This child’s chest of drawers could be the perfect piece to pair with the bed in your child’s room. Both feature a similar set of lines and feel clean, simple and functional.

5. This Deerfield Sofa

This sofa has tons of old-world style charm to it. With its graceful curved lines and beautiful red upholstering, it needs to be paired with something that looks equally regal and charming.

We love the way it looks paired with this stylish half-round table. The legs give it just enough of a graceful, decorative look to echo the lines of the sofa, and all the soft, rounded edges do an excellent job of complementing the curves in the sofa.

6. This Forrest Writing Desk

Whether you need a desk for a home office, a bedroom or a living room, this piece has all the charm and sophistication you’ll need. It has a sturdy wood base, but the heaviness is beautifully contrasted with the inlay in the top of the desk and the decorative wrought iron in the base. For this desk, you’ll need a desk chair with an equal amount of character and charm.

We think this Acadia desk chair pairs with the desk to make the perfect combination for your workspace. The leather seat complements the inlay and the wrought iron, and while the chair has a unique combination of straight lines and rounded edges the play nicely off the desk’s edges.

Even though it might be easiest just to match the furniture with its set, it’s by no means the most fun way to decorate. Do some experimenting. Try something new. Mix and match. Maybe try a few things you know you like, and try a dash of something new to re-imagine up your home.

Tips for Decorating With Amish Furniture

Since most Amish furniture is designed around the simple idea of high-quality furniture, it’s effortless to decorate with. Amish furniture is almost always solid hardwood, and it tends to be focused on simple elegance and lots of straight, clean lines. This is great news for you as you decorate because this means you would be hard pressed to find something that wouldn’t look good with this furniture.

However, in case you’re looking for a little extra guidance in your decorating, here are a few extra tips as you decorate around your new Amish furniture.

Stick to a Color Scheme

Most likely, your furniture won’t have a lot of color to it. It’ll come in beautiful, natural wood tones. When you pick your furniture out, and as you mix and match pieces from different collections, you’ll want to make sure that you’re consistent with your wood tones. If you don’t want to get the same shade of wood, make sure you get shades that complement each other.

When it comes to choosing a paint color for the room and other decorations, there are no set guidelines other than to make sure your decorations match each other. When you select items like throw pillows or wall art, consider the color of the walls and how best to match it. Any color will look great against the natural, rich wood tones of the furniture. So pick any color you like and get busy painting.

Try Hardwood Flooring

The simple elegance of Amish furniture looks good in any room, but it’s complemented especially well by the clean, fresh look of hardwood floors. It will give your entire room a feeling of high-quality sophistication.

With hardwood flooring, it’s not important to match the wood tone of your floors to the wood tone of your furniture. In fact, it might even be best to lay the floor in a contrasting wood shade. Perhaps use a lighter wood for the floor and a darker wood for the furniture, or vice versa.

Lay a Rug

If you do end up selecting a hardwood floor, you might consider picking out a rug to put on the floor. This will help add a little softness and color to all the solid wood tones that will be present in your décor.

Maybe you’ll pick a rug that matches your wall color, or maybe you’ll pick one that complements it. For example, if you paint your walls are blue, you might choose a rug that is primarily cream colored but has small flecks of blue in it to complement the color of the walls. On the other hand, if your walls are white or cream or any other neutral color, you might want the rug to be a bit more colorful.

Keep the Decorations Minimal

Because Amish furniture is so focused on simple design and straight, clean shapes, it’s best to keep the decorations from getting out of hand. Pick a few simple, classic decorations and place those carefully around the room.

With such large, beautifully crafted pieces of furniture as the main center of focus in a room, it’s best to avoid having too many knick-knacks taking up space on the coffee tables and bookcases. You might decorate with a clock, some personal photographs or a beautiful piece of wall art. You might even have a curio cabinet and display a few pieces of china or other items. Whatever you choose, keep it light, simple and classic.

These tips are our suggestions for how you can best decorate your home using our beautifully crafted Amish furniture. However, the most important element in any decorating process is you and what you want. The whole purpose of decorating is to make your home your own.

So use these tips as guidelines, but remember that your space is your own to decorate. So feel free to follow these tips, or throw them aside and create a style that’s uniquely your own. With these handcrafted Amish pieces displayed in your home, any decorations and style you choose are sure to look stunning.