How to Identify Quality Vintage Furniture

We at The Barn on Country Club are experts in antique and vintage furniture. Many people seek out vintage items because they want to incorporate unexpected elements into their decorating, while others turn to them in order to save money without sacrificing quality. Whatever your reasons for vintage furniture shopping, our team wants to help you make your search a success. It can be difficult to identify quality pieces among a crowd of similar options, but with these tips from our team here at The Barn on Country Club, you will be able to tell whether your find is trash or treasure. In this piece, we’ll go over what to look for in both wooden and upholstered vintage furniture.

• Wood Furniture- When examining vintage wood furniture, the main thing to look for is solid wood and construction. Check the piece for knots, as these are prone to cracks. Also test how scratch-resistant the piece is by lightly scratching it with a fingernail—if it makes any kind of dent, then you know it won’t hold up to much use. Some pieces will use veneers, or a thin layer of premium wood over ordinary lumber; these are fine as long as the base wood is sturdy but know that you won’t be able to refinish more than once or twice. As for construction, look for dovetail joints or mortise-and-tenon, and avoid anything held together with staples or nails.
• Upholstered Furniture- When looking at sofas or upholstered chairs, there are a number of things to check. If the piece has removable cushions, unzip one and look inside—you should see a foam core wrapped in a layer of dacron, cotton, or down; foam-only cushions are less durable. For construction, no one spring configuration is clearly superior for comfort, so it’s best to just test each piece individually. Finally, when you squeeze the sides or back, you ideally shouldn’t feel the frame underneath.

We at The Barn on Country Club hope these tips help find high-quality vintage furniture that will become a lasting addition to your home. If you want further advice or are ready to start your search, just stop by our store to see what we have to offer.