Old Oak Furniture Why Your Ancestors Didn’t Need IKEA Instructions

Old Oak Furniture: Why Your Ancestors Didn’t Need IKEA Instructions

There is a particular kind of frustration that comes with assembling flat-pack furniture. You have laid out all the pieces, counted the screws, studied the diagrams and somehow ended up with three spare fittings and a drawer that refuses to close. Now imagine explaining this experience to a 17th-century English joiner. He would probably look […]

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Why Some Oak Furniture Was Built to Keep Witches Away

Why Some Oak Furniture Was Built to Keep Witches Away

Pick up a piece of old oak furniture and you’re holding more than timber and joinery. In the 16th and 17th centuries, oak chests, cupboards, bed frames and panelling lived in a world where the supernatural wasn’t a Halloween theme, it was a genuine, everyday anxiety. People worried about witchcraft, ill luck, “evil influences,” and […]

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