Good rustic furniture vs bad rustic furniture

[Stephen Tashiro]

The "rustic" furniture that I've seen for sale, doesn't strike me as particularly good or bad. It's probably easy to find examples of bad rustic furniture. I'd like to see examples of rustic furniture that people consider good and outstanding.

[Jim Koepke]

The "rustic" furniture that I've seen for sale, doesn't strike me as particularly good or bad. It's probably easy to find examples of bad rustic furniture. I'd like to see examples of rustic furniture that people consider good and outstanding.

"Rustic furniture" is a rather slippery classification.

Is it still rustic if it's made in a factory?

jtk

[Tom Bender]

I remember a story with pictures of bodgers working in the English forests making chair parts on treadle lathes they carried with them. Part were shipped to a shop where they were assembled still green. That would be rustic.

[Doug Dawson]

The "rustic" furniture that I've seen for sale, doesn't strike me as particularly good or bad. It's probably easy to find examples of bad rustic furniture. I'd like to see examples of rustic furniture that people consider good and outstanding.

Uncle Cletus builds a potting table, out of pallet wood. How do you define rustic? It strikes me that this is related to theatrical set design, which is the next place I would look if I were interested in this sort of thing.

[Michael A. Tyree]

In todays world rustic has taken on a different twist than my personal notion. I don't call basic home made cabinet work rustic unless it's willow style or twig furniture. I make Appalachian style chairs with hickory bark bottoms and sometimes the backs too. In my mind they are not rustic no matter if the lathe is electric and modern as mine or a treadle lathe. To sum my thoughts rustic means "roughly constructed" using basic tools, or something like that...

[johnny means]

I think of the rustic aesthetic as an attempt to let the natural condition of the materials or object to play a role in the design. That could mean not culling out knots or imperfections. It could mean letting a pieces age and wear be instead of stripping back to bare wood and restoring to an as new look. What I see being sold as rustic is more often than not just poorly made with low cost materials junk. Yes, I would include most pallet furniture in with the junk.

[Mick Simon]

I have a Mississippi style rocker made by Greg Harkins back in the 80s. It was turned from completely green walnut so that the surrounding legs, etc. tightened against the through wedge-tenoned stretchers as they dried. No glue or hardware. I consider it to be really good authentic rustic.

[Ole Anderson]

This is what rustic furniture is to me (grew up with these folks about 5 miles away) Moon Valley Rustic (log) Furniture: http://www.moonvalleyrusticfurniture.com/
http://www.moonvalleyrustic.com/images/products/TwinBed.jpg

[Ronald Teti]

Rustic to me means country type furniture