Mission Style Bar Stools, Created From The Past For The Present

The arts and crafts school of furnishings and mission arts style furnishings are pretty much synonymous, (furniture stores ). Clean lines, basic wood, leather, copper, other pure materials and an artisan like approach to manufacture set this school of furnishings apart from those of other generations. In recent years, this sort of furniture has become increasingly popular with collectors and, consequently, more and more of it is being reproduced. Some items that might never have been made in the arts and crafts style are now rolling off today’s assembly lines (dining table and chairs ). That’s one reason you’ll find items like mission style bar stools in a retailers shop. People want the look but they want it in the modern pieces they need.

Let’s face the facts. We have furniture  in our homes now that they didn’t really need back in the last decade of the 19th Century up until 1918 or so. Gustav Stickley, one of the most famous makers of this style of furnishings, probably never sat at a computer desk. Still, companies today are making computer desks in this distinctive style. Why? Because people love the look of that era, and besides, we can pretty much predict, based upon the designs of the pieces that were made during the arts and crafts era, what that desk would have looked like. The result is a replica of what might have been that has been created to use in a house decorated with the genuine articles.

Mission style bar stools, like an arts and crafts computer desk,  are things created by today’s designers using yesterday’s designs. They are meant to fill voids in our homes where there are no true mission style pieces to use. The fact that the clean look makes a handsome bar stool doesn’t hurt sales either. All in all, I think Mr. Stickley would have approved.