Individual pieces in French provincial furniture have a lot of character especially the small pieces. The side chairs are comfortable and yet light to move about. It’s this element of comfort and utility that I find appealing. Consider the corner cabinet, the hanging shelves, and little corner wall cabinets. They are less crude than our Early American pieces. The dresser shown below is not unlike similar pieces of English oak of the 17th century.

The French commodes or chests are sometimes fitted with shelves and although they are commodious, seem to avoid being chunky in appearance. The tables, like English oak pieces, come with a draw top: two extension pieces pull out to add length at the ends. Such tables are useful and attractive in combination rooms. For instance, if instead of a dining room you have a combination living dining room, the table could be closed and permanently placed at right angles to the wall instead of in the center of the room. It looks as much like a living room piece as a dining table. If necessary, it could be extended for meals. Wallpaper in Quipper design is used for three walls with the dresser against recessed painted wall. The figures on the Quipper plates and tea set match the wallpaper. A cozy little dining room with gate leg table which can have one or both leaves dropped a low hutch and high dresser of maple.

In Early American, It is very endearing, this Early American furniture! It is peculiarly our own. The gate leg tables, ladder back chairs and old dressers were all originally of English design and doubtless some original pieces came with the early settlers. But almost of the furniture was made by the colonists, of the wood at hand.