Couches, chairs, coffee tables, and sofas. It’s probably not much of a stretch to guess that you don’t spend much time thinking about these things. Most wooden furniture is built to last a long time, and we interact with some of it so often that it become just a piece of the background, a thing that we take for granted. However, when you consider that we spend about a third to a quarter of our lives sitting down, it becomes obvious that one might want to consider paying the same sort of attention to their furniture choices that they do with other important decisions in life.
When it comes to carpentry, few have a reputation as far-reaching and impressive as the Amish. A relatively small community, the Amish have been hand-crafting and building virtually everything they use for their daily lives out of wood dating back hundreds of years. In much the same way that German automobile manufacturers are viewed as an absolute authority on producing high-tech, road-worthy creations, the Amish can be thought of as their decidedly less technologically advanced counterpart, in that their creations themselves are bywords for quality and craftsmanship.
Generally speaking, if you’re after quality, you likely won’t be able to find any better than an Amish creation. The very word “Amish” implies that everything is 100% hand-made, which means that there will be an inherent feel of authenticity with your purchase that you won’t get elsewhere. Your piece will truly be one of a kind. In fact, in a recent survey of over 2,000 participants, over 92% of those who had purchased Amish furniture estimated that they would keep their pieces for at least fifteen years, with about 70% of those individuals claiming that the furniture designs actually reflected their personality, perhaps speaking towards the Amish’s reputation for creating unique, customized works.
The Amish started to become known as master craftsmen sometime around the early 1900s, when art aficionados and historians began bringing to the forefront of pop culture what is now described as “American Folk Art,” featuring the works of Amish builders coveted for their beauty, uniqueness, and quality.
But it’s not just all wooden cupboards and in-house wooden furniture that the Amish specialize in. Browse around online if you’re in the market for a high quality build that is sure to be unlike anything you’ve ever seen on the shelves at your local furniture retailer.
