Classic Decorating Styles Defined

I'm a great reader of mystery fiction from England, Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie and the rest of the queens of crime. They always reference the furniture in classic terms...but what do they really mean?

When you chat with a home decorator about the various styles that have been popular throughout the years, you hear a lot of terminology that you might not be too familiar with, or that you've only read about in books.

These classic styles are old - from 500 years onward - but there is an old saying... everything old is new again, much as with clothing styles. Any of these styles can be combined with the more modern styles to create wonderful living spaces.

In this article I discuss classic styles from England and France.

Styles from England
The Renaissance style from Italy didn't reach England until about 100 years after they'd already had their day in Italy...arriving during Tudor and Elizabethan times. (Tudor times start from Henry VII, who obtained the throne in 1485, and Elizabethan times started when Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1558, and ended with her death in 1603).

These styles are identified by its furniture:

Queen Anne (1702-1714): The furniture created in this decade featured curvilinear design and Oriental influence.

Georgian (named after King George): Again, those classical details from Greece and Rome, influenced these designs. (In actual fact, Rome borrowed its designs from the Greeks.)

Chippendale (name of a furniture maker): : This furniture was designed to a generous scale - the Chippendale chairs are considered more "masculine" than the Queen Anne chairs.

Hepplewhite and Sheraton: These two furniture makers were competitors fro a time. Their furniture was made from 1775 to 1800. Hepplewhite featured "Well-scaled" chairs with a distinctive shield-shaped backs, while Sheraton furniture is delicate, with "neoclassic elements and design motifs."

Adam is in the reference books, but I've never heard it described in the classic cozy English murder mysteries that I read so avidly. However, their furniture is described as "finely designed, delicately scaled, and elaborately detailed." The colors are their most distinctive feature - dulled blue, pale yellow-green light grey, and lavender.

The Victorian period, named after Queen Victoria, of course, started the trend toward factory-made, rather than hand-made furniture, thus making it affordable to the newly arising middle class.

Styles from France
Louis XIV: Characterized by large-scale furniture, lots and lots of ornamentation, and a strong color contrast.

Regency: According to experts, this style lasted from 1700-1730. Economy of design was the watchword, graceful scrolls and curves.

Louis XV: "Feminine, sentimental and delicate" is how the experts describe this style. The rooms were smaller, and the furniture that went into them was correspondingly smaller. There's also an Oriental influence to be found.

Louis XVI, also called Neoclassic, was popular from 1760-1789. The styles of the ancient Greeks and Romans were revived.

The Empire style came into use during the Napoleonic era, 1804-1820. As might be expected, it's a very masculine style, as Napoleon wanted to reflect the military - Egyptian motifs and Roman allegorical influences.