The dictionary defines furniture as articles used to make a room usable. Which sort of says it all in a nut shell. Basically, there are two things to consider in the selection of furniture.
The first and foremost is function. What is the purpose of the pieces of furniture and what is it to do to make this room usable for the people using it? What are the activities that will take place in this interior space? What type of people will be using this space? What sizes are the occupants? Are they tall and slender or short and big? What are their ages? What kind of clothes will they be wearing? Will they be all of one type or many types? What are their ages? What physical characteristics should the furniture have to accommodate the occupants? Should seating be soft and comfortable or firm and rigid? What should be the angle of the back and arms and and how high should they be? How high and deep should the seats be? What are the storage requirements of the room and how is that need best achieved? How practical should the furniture be for daily use, longevity, cleaning, maintenance, et cetera? And what is the financial value of the furniture taking into consideration it’s initial costs and how long it will be used?
Almost all furniture in general is made to accommodate many different types, sizes, functions, and ages of people and is mass produced for a mass consumer market. A small portion is made for more specific uses and characteristics. The biggest deciding factor for furniture factories is financial – costs of materials, labor, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, selling, taxes, et cetera – with little thought given to the questions in the previous paragraph. The smaller and more specialized the maker and the higher the price, the more likely a higher quality to the piece and thought to the many other details.
The second thing to consider is the flavor, personality, ambiance, looks, et cetera of the furniture and how such fulfills it’s role in the room. What are the colors, types of fabrics, patterns, materials, finishes, sizes, and styles selected? Is everything to be new, antique, previously owned, what you have, or a mixture of many kinds? If you think of furniture as food, these choices are what would give the food it’s flavor and make it taste good and satisfying.
If you plan and execute well these two things, your furniture should be pleasing, lasting, comfortable, and functional for many years. It should not grow dull and routine, but become more pleasant and enjoyable with the years.
It is an interesting observation that in the design and construction of residential spaces, there is a very general name given to a room and construction is based and executed by size of lot, total square footage of structure (most often determined by price per square foot), plumbing, HVAC, windows, doors, shape of house, style, most economical placement of rooms, et cetera. In other words, instead of planning what activities will take place in a room and what furniture sizes, shapes, and placements will best fit those needs and designing a room as such, the room is built and the furniture has to fit into it which is to me a sort of backward approach. Instead of form determined by function, function has to fit predetermined form. Such is why most rooms don’t look put together. The furnishing have to fit the room and the room doesn’t have to fit the activities and furniture. The biggest mistake most people make in this area is size. They put too many pieces of big furniture in too small spaces. It looks out of balance and is uncomfortable to move around in such a space. The other bad thing many people do is putting too many pieces of furniture together. How many times have you sat at a crowded dining table where you were jammed close to the people on either side of you and hit the table and chair legs getting in and out or had to maneuver around pieces of furniture to move about?
Have you ever been to someone’s house and there was a piece of furnishings which was totally inappropriate and out of place and upon commenting about it you were told that they have to have it because: We got that when we first got married or that it belonged to my grandmother or some other such reason?
As a financial and intellectual exercise make a column of all the monies spend in a life time on home furnishings and how long they last vs a column of all the monies spent in a life time on cars and how long they last.
As in many of life’s decisions, emotional is used over intellectual.
Food for thought.