New Dining Room Furniture

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The transition between the living and dining room in my city house is under construction, both in fact and in my head! I have imagined a colonnade of some kind, a half-partition, to agree with Stickley’s idea that a home should not “be a series of cells, room upon room, shut away from the others”. He even mentions a “great room” concept, not unlike our “open space” preferences today, using as “few entrances and doorways as possible”. Anyhow, as I plan the dining room so it “is enhanced by glimpses of the living room” (per Stickley), I decided to make some dining room furniture for which I finished their scale drawings last year. The tea cart is my own design with a little snippet of my great grandmother’s tatting under the glass on the tray. I’m stalling, maybe, but the living room-dining room transition solution will come to me. Watch this space!

Update: The colonnade design did evolve over a period of months, and I had plenty of time to construct it during a second year of Covid-19. Check it out on “Photo Catch-up” entry posted on January 28, 2022.

Sideboard #817 Front; Originally the sideboard sold for $84.00 with ooze leather lining in top drawer. In 1907, the hardware on this piece was changed from wooded drawer knobs and pointed strap hinges to the above, but from 1901 on it remained a huge piece of furniture and its price never changed.
Serving Table #802 ($18.00); The unusual curve on the front apron was probably designed by Harvey Ellis. It first appeared in 1903, changed the hardware to hammered copper or iron in 1905 and was catalogued until 1909.
Tea Cart, my design.
Stickley Serving Table #802
Sideboard with Drawers Open
Stickley Sideboard #817
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