Author Description

This outstanding work provides furniture makers and woodworkers with the principal antique country furniture designs used in North America during the past 400 years. Concerned only with provincial handmade designs — generally of simple solid-wood construction — John Shea's carefully researched and abundantly illustrated volume includes 95 measured drawings from which serious students and craftworkers can reproduce their own versions of these antique classics. All important European influences are represented — English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, French, Dutch, German, Spanish, and Norwegian among them. Among the pieces represented are Shaker chairs, rockers, tables, and a wall cupboard; a New England settle, Spanish trestle table, Dutch gateleg table, French Canadian armoire and dresser, a Pennsylvania German corner cupboard and plate rack, as well as a wide array of country bedsteads, benches, stools, candlestands, plate racks, wall sconces, and much more. Additional sections of the book provide historical background to several regional designs, describing the effects that various nationalities and ethnic and religious roots have had on furniture design and construction. A number of construction techniques (for creating dovetail joints, applied moldings, scrolled paneling, cabriole legs, mortise-and-tenon joints, and more) are also explored. Profusely illustrated with some 800 photographs and line drawings, this richly informative manual will be valued by furniture makers for its clearly delineated technical segments as well as by anyone who has ever been fascinated by the construction and design of antique furniture.