What is your least favorite furniture design trend?

[Mike Mason]

I don't exactly know why, but over time I have developed a dislike for live edge tables, in particular "river tables". Years ago, I did make and sell in a gallery a live edge bench (not just a slab bolted onto steel hairpin legs, but at least incorporating dovetail joinery), and I had purchased several other slabs before it became popular and the prices increased (I subsequently sold them at a small profit), but after making one thing out of a live edge slab, I decided I was moving on. It seems that this trend is everywhere (look on craigslist and see how many backyard lumber mills are offering such slabs), and I can't see it lasting except maybe in rustic, log-cabin style homes. It has even spawned those boutique woodworking accessory manufacturers to market things like expensive framework that you can use with your router to semi-flatten a live edge slab. It's probably just a matter of time before IKEA offers a particle board live edge slab table.

Am I alone in this feeling?

Are there other current design trends (like the reincarnation of MCM chrome and Formica dinette sets) that you really don't like?

I do have to give credit to those backyard lumber mills that are now successfully selling slab wood lumber that in prior years would have been, in most cases, worthless except as firewood (or for Door County fish boils).

[Frank Pratt]

Live edge furniture that would be more suited to the fire pit. And 2X if it's incorporates river pour.

[James Jayko]

Live edge stuff is wildly overdone, but can be / has been cool. Epoxy on everything is...a hate crime. River tables are the worst. I mean, if you want tacky furniture in your house, more power to you. But when you're in a shared shop and someone takes up the ENTIRE glue up area to make a river table (and it takes 3 days to get it moved along), I lose my mind. The only thing worse is the guy who's sloppy with epoxy and gets it everywhere.

So I guess...I'm with you all the way.

[George Yetka]

It depends. Blacktail studio uses some impressive slabs and his pours in black do not offend me. I agree with you for most other situations

What offends me more than anything is particle board kitchen tables that cost 1,000s of dollars that you cant leave water on for more than 30 seconds or they soak in the water. If they were $500 I could see it.

[Edward Weber]

Live edge stuff is wildly overdone, but can be / has been cool. Epoxy on everything is...a hate crime. River tables are the worst. I mean, if you want tacky furniture in your house, more power to you. But when you're in a shared shop and someone takes up the ENTIRE glue up area to make a river table (and it takes 3 days to get it moved along), I lose my mind. The only thing worse is the guy who's sloppy with epoxy and gets it everywhere.

So I guess...I'm with you all the way.

+1 on all of the above.
Live edge furniture is fine, I like Nakashima style, (done by Nakashima)

That said, these days people are just lazy. There really is no woodworking involved. Cover it in plastic and screw metal legs to it, Look, I'm a maker, but I digress.
Also not a fan of chrome and glass or painted wood furniture

JMO, there's plenty of this stuff out there, someone must like it

[andrew whicker]

Live edge can be neat. I'm not anti live edge.

The epoxy is way overkill. I can't believe how well it is still selling. I thought that trend was going to be dead in a few years. Personally, I cringe at it from an environmental perspective. I'm not sure what it takes to create all that epoxy goo, but I'm betting it isn't kumbaya and roses.

Overall, as I get more into cabinetry, shaker is way overplayed. But from a business perspective, I lucked out that I get to learn on the the simple stuff vs having to learn right away on cathedral style stain grade cabinet doors. I just think in general we are going down a "too simplified and too clean" design pattern. I'm sure it will change soon. I do like the Euro style more than the old American face frame with huge reveals. Maybe something in between is the next step.

Another other odd thing that is happening / has happened is the clear coat plywood finish on kitchen cabs. I think that is cool in a limited sort of way, but if you read Dwell magazine you see wealthy homeowners doing it all the time. That and very square houses with huge windows.

I just think people are either bad at tapping into their imagination / creativity OR they just truly don't care and are happy with whatever trend is being sold to them. Right now, it seems to me that builders are deciding what is cool and that pushes the market to make everything square as possible (the house itself, windows, cabinets, trim, furniture, etc). Or, in the woodworking realm, you have CNC builders "pushing the boundaries", but not in a very exciting way. Think fold up furniture or clear coat Baltic birch built ins, etc.

[Jesse Brown]

I'm not bothered by what people do with their own time and money, but for my taste, any trendy technique that is done without thought to overall design is my least favorite. Live edge, epoxy, kumiko, tensegrity, "patterned" plywood, Dutchman repairs, etc. are all valid techniques that are frequently misapplied IMHO.

[Michael Burnside]

I like pretty much any woodworking technique/style, but I'd say my least favorite is anything that is covered in epoxy. Not to be confused with epoxy inlays, which can be tasteful. For me, all manner of natural flies out the window when wood, regardless of how beautiful it is, becomes entirely encapsulated in plastic. The "river" just makes it that much worse. Not to mention the environmental impact and waste it creates doing such things.

[Stan Calow]

I blame Andy Rooney (a bona fide woodworker) for the live edge and Dutchman-tied desk he would show off on 60 Minutes every week. I dislike them and river tables. Also waterfall tables. But I'd make them all if I someone was willing to buy them.

[Richard Coers]

Pallet wood furniture.

[John Kananis]

I'm pretty much in the same boat as most here. I have nothing against live edge when it's done properly. But, I'd like to set fire to all the epoxy-pour tables in the world. I feel it's destructive and irresponsible. Not a single one of these river tables will ever make it into a museum because they'll never last long enough. No matter how much "plastic" you use, wood moves... etc etc, sorry for the slight rant.

[Andrew More]

Skate board plywood - I got a lot of hassle from the skater crowd who were too cool for school, and I've taken this aversion into wood working. Sorry, skating is dumb, your skate board adjacent wood working project isn't any cooler for it.
Bars - Always strikes me as people fetishizing their drug consumption.
Cheap Furniture at High Prices - Sorta the anti-Ikea effect. You get these poorly constructed pieces that are selling on design for $$$$$. I hate trendy stuff, and people getting ripped off. Ikea at least has the decency to be cheap with their cheap furniture.

In defense of live edge, I've always just looked at it as trying to get more utility out of the wood by using a part that would get cut off in times when trees were more plentiful. That having been said, it's definitely overdone.

[Bill Dufour]

The old lodge pole peeled pine rustic furniture. Surface is too rough to keep clean. no pads on feet so it will scar up floor. hacked joint holes and hatchet to make tennons.
Epoxy free, the choice for me.
Bill D

[Cameron Wood]

I never much liked redwood burl stuff, and I lived in the thick of the time & place of it. Whatever is disliked about live-edge & epoxy coated was 10X more.

Some of the industrial/crude things are really offensive- steel I beams sticking out dangerously and such. A tally of emergency room visits caused could be carved in.

High strung art furniture doesn't do much for me- suitable for a gallery but for actual use.

[Phillip Mitchell]

Crucify me or whatever, but I cannot really stand ornate, Anglo period furniture. I realize that was more like an era and less of a trend, so to speak…Queen Anne, Georgian, Victorian, etc. Tends to make me want to vomit due to overstimulation.

Shaker passes the test for me, Japanese/Chinese, and early/simpler Arts and Crafts is good. Scandinavian is among the top of the heap, imo. Nakashima was good at what he did and I wish live edge had just stopped somewhere in that realm. Most mainstream trends are so diluted now, live edge/epoxy tables included, that it’s hard to really get behind any of them unless the intent and inspiration is more pure and educated.

Ok, I’ll go back in my cave now.