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Valet Stands Rise To The Occasion
April 30, 2010

Valet Stands Rise To The Occasion

There are few pieces of traditional furniture with specialized functions that have made the light-year leap into the twenty-first century with the same stoic style and functional appeal of valet stands . These stalwart serving pieces are invariably well made and crafted from the best materials. They look naked, however, if they are not doing their job by keeping your best suit ready for you to wear. After all, this is one piece of furniture that was built to serve. In an era when few of us have servants, the idea of having a person whose job it was to wash, iron and prepare our clothing for us seems a bit far fetched. We all pretty much handle those chores ourselves. Still, it comes in handy to have the right shirt, jacket, tie and slacks, along with the necessary socks, shoes and other garments ready and waiting for you to shower, shave and slide into them. That’s where these patient, eager to serve valet stands come in to play. While a few of the newer stands are crafted out of wrought metal or other more modern materials, most of them are still wooden. My favorite was built with its sloping “hanger” and a...

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Sideboards Filling New Roles In Today’s World
April 30, 2010

Sideboards Filling New Roles In Today’s World

Originally designed for use by servants who would stage the food for serving the guests seated at the dining table, the sideboard has always been considered primarily a serving piece. Since most of us don’t have servants these days, our sideboards  typically now fill the role of a buffet table. We load them with foods and drinks and then stand back and allow our guests to help themselves. The sideboard has been an integral part of better dining room furnishings for centuries. The older ones were massive and not only had the large flat surface for chafing dishes and other food-service items, the cabinets and drawers beneath also stored some of the large serving pieces that every good home possessed. Let’s face it. Few of us have a large lead crystal punch bowl with forty matching cups to tuck away somewhere. If we did, however, the sideboards of yesteryear would have held them with ease. The size of the sideboard has dwindled as their role has changed. Today, the sideboard is smaller and many times is even sold as a buffet or server. Meant to sit against a wall of the dining room, it often has a small raised back with...

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Shelving Units Can Create Versatile Storage
April 30, 2010

Shelving Units Can Create Versatile Storage

Whether you want to organize your nuts and bolts in the tool shed, make order of out the chaos of miscellaneous items in the garage or perhaps be able to find a can of beans in your pantry, you will soon become a big fan of shelving units . These units are designed to fill the gap left behind when whoever built your house (or shed) forgot to include enough space for adequate storage. Most of us are familiar with the types that go in closets, but there are lots more and each offering a special reason why it is perfect for its particular job.   Shelving for the bathroom or other damp areas shouldn’t be made out of metal, unless you enjoy rust. Coated metal or plastic shelving units for bathroom storage work best. Metal shelving, on the other hand, seems to be the material of choice for use in the workshop or the garage. While wooden shelves are the most common sorts of units found in pantries and closets, because they fit the look and serve the purpose. Whether you opt for a built-in unit or a stand alone, there is bound to be one to meet your current and future...

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Nightclub Furniture That Puts Patron Safety First
April 30, 2010

Nightclub Furniture That Puts Patron Safety First

Nightclub furniture  has been designed for comfort and durability for a very long time. With the changes in the way modern clubs are decorating, including the infusion of new materials like glass, stone and high-tech composites, into the make-up of the more modern club “look”, furnishing manufacturers are now taking the safety of patrons into consideration when implementing new designs.   Club furniture appeals to the eye can bring customers in and that usually makes a club owner or manager happy. Then, there is the first incident where an employee, or even worse, a patron, stumbles and hits his head on the corner of a decorative table made of metal and glass. The results, of that incident will not leave anyone feeling happy, unless of course it is the attorney who plans on taking the club owner to the cleaners in court. So, while today’s updated looks in bar furnishings are fashionable, they are not being undertaken without an eye to safety. Finding nightclub furniture that not only attracts business because it looks good, but that can actually lower the incident of injuries due to falls from or onto furniture, is getting easier. Using state-of-the-art computer technology, contemporary designers are able to create...

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Leather Furniture, Care and Upkeep
April 30, 2010

Leather Furniture, Care and Upkeep

In many cases, fine leather furniture  can be looked upon as an investment. As with your home, car and other investments, you want to ensure that your good leather furnishings retain their value over time. To accomplish this, you need to employ some basic maintenance and cleaning routines. The right tools, a little of your time and your leather sofa or chair will remain beautiful and valuable for years to come.   There are lots of products on the market for cleaning and caring for your good leather furniture. While I’ve enjoyed some success with a few newer treatments, I still employ my trusted ally of yesteryear, mink oil, for softening and protecting valuable leather furnishings. Mink oil rubbed into leather softens the material, making it suppler and less vulnerable to rips or tears that can happen if the material dries out. The oil, moreover, provides waterproofing that will enable you to mop up spills on that soft butter colored leather sofa before they can permeate the surface. Of course, as with all better furniture, you want to use common sense in locating your good leather pieces. Leather will be affected to some degree by sunlight. If you’re using it in a brightly...

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Dining Tables For Restaurant To Ensure Diverse Discussions
April 30, 2010

Dining Tables For Restaurant To Ensure Diverse Discussions

Dining tables are the staple of the dining room décor. You probably wouldn’t call it a dining room if it didn’t have one. Still, they perform many valuable services for a busy family in addition to supplying them with a place to enjoy a meal. Your dining room’s table can be anything from a think tank to a conference table, and you won’t even have to change tablecloth. All you need is the right idea.   Suppose a family meeting on some new ways to cut back on expenses or to promote a green lifestyle is way overdue. You might opt to hold it in the living room, or den. There would probably, however, be quite a few distractions there that are usually not found in a dining room. Dining tables, furthermore, provide a “round table” for discussions such as these and keep everyone grouped together so you can ensure they are paying full attention. Got a big project you’re working on? Maybe you’re having a garage sale. Use your dining room as the project center. Dining room tables can support your art department as you make posters and signs. It will hold stacks of clothes or boxes of odds and ends...

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Traditional Console Tables Can Cheer Up A Dull Space
April 30, 2010

Traditional Console Tables Can Cheer Up A Dull Space

I wonder if the console table and the word consolation have anything in common. I cannot think of a single piece of furniture that does more to cheer up a blank, boring spot of wall than the narrow, rectangular console tables  that provide an attractive accent along with some storage and some display space to areas where other pieces of furniture would just stick out like a sore thumb. Suppose you have a drab spot in a hall, or a small wall that needs something but not too much. You’ve tried book shelves, plant stands, table fountains and even resorted to the idea of hanging a very large mirror. Nothing has worked. The area is sad and depressing as it sits empty. Then, you find a wonderful table. It is tall and narrow enough to fit the space, and long enough to provide the idea of substance. It also has optional elements that can include drawers or cabinets for storage, or shelves that stack upward, making it like a mini-hutch. When you place it against the wall, it seems to fit as if it were made for that spot. Such joy! Of course, you might have to paint your table if the...

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Coat Stands For Every Kind Of Décor
April 30, 2010

Coat Stands For Every Kind Of Décor

In the winter, they are invaluable. When the weather turns stormy, they are a treasure. Even when they are used for mere ornamentation, very few pieces of accent furniture can rival coat stands for appeal. Whether you are shopping for a coat stand  in order to hold your outerwear, or you enjoy the homey look it gives to an entryway or foyer, today’s stands come in such a wide variety of styles, that you might want one for both the front and the back doors.   In parts of the country where mudrooms are common, the coat stand always seems to be full. In the South, they are more often found in the entry hall of a home. Some enterprising souls have even started using coat stands  in their closets to hold outerwear and other oddments such as belts or scarves. Wherever they are located, these necessary but often decorative stands provide two things: a place to hang your hat and an opportunity to add some flair to the space. If you are a homemaker and a home decorator, then you have to love the many styles in which coat stands can be found. From the standard wooden “tree” style, to a seated...

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Bedside Cabinets Provide Convenient Storage
April 30, 2010

Bedside Cabinets Provide Convenient Storage

I hate waking up in the middle of the night and having to traipse all of the way to the bathroom for an aspirin or to find a tissue for blowing my nose. I could keep a carafe of water, all my medications, a box of tissues, a handgun and my latest novel on the bedside table, but then I’d have no room for a lamp or the dreaded alarm clock. Since I am not one to do without creature comforts when they are readily available, I have decided to look into purchasing one of the new beside cabinets  I’ve seen on-line.   Bedside tables are nice, but lack storage. Ordinary cabinets look gauche. These specially designed cabinets are meant to look just as nice next to the bed, but they also provide you with a few very nice little extras. I have been shopping and am on the fence between two I like very well. The first just matches my bedroom suite and comes with a cabinet large enough to hold my water carafe, a box of tissue and my book, along with a draw just in case I do actually buy a handgun. The other will fit in with my...

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Choose Your Commercial Counter Stools
April 30, 2010

Choose Your Commercial Counter Stools

More homes today are being built with kitchen islands or game room bars as part of the package. I love a bar for gathering about in the game room while we enjoy a round of pool or a game of darts. I also enjoy having a friend pull a stool up to the kitchen island and chat with me as I chop vegetables. While the islands and bars are often built-in, they usually don’t come with bar stools . You have to go out and find those yourself. Fortunately, shopping for them can be loads of fun, since there are so many kinds to choose from.   For the bar in the game room, we wanted something that looked like it might have come out of an old English or Irish pub. We were fortunate and located a set of four bar stools that were actually antiques from Ireland and only needed minor refurbishing to make them a comfortable addition to our recreation room. We could, of course, have purchased reproductions but we wanted the authenticity and we really enjoy the history of these pieces. The stools for the kitchen were found at a home center. They are actually stools designed for use at...

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