Furniture styles explained: traditional to Shaker, how to spot each one, and pieces listed in Duncan

Traditional and transitional furniture styles

Traditional furniture style goes back to 18th-century English and American pieces. The Metropolitan Museum of Art's essay on American furniture of that century describes the Queen Anne chair of the 1730s. It had a vase-shaped splat (the centre board of the chair back) and S-curved cabriole legs, often in walnut. Chippendale, or Rococo, furniture followed, named for Thomas Chippendale's pattern book of 1754. Its chairs went to square seats, pierced and carved backs, and claw-and-ball feet.

A traditional sofa today keeps the softer parts of that look: rolled arms, welting and wooden legs. Rolled arms are only one of the arm shapes sofas come in. The La-Z-Boy Mackenzie sofa, listed for Duncan at $3,332, is what La-Z-Boy calls a traditional style sofa, with rolled, pleated arms and welt trim.

Transitional sits between traditional and contemporary. It keeps a traditional shape, usually the rolled arm, and drops the carving. The Decor-Rest 2455 loveseat ($1,599) is a transitional rolled-arm loveseat on 3 inch square wood legs, by its listing. La-Z-Boy puts its Colby recliner ($2,805 to $3,662) in the same style. Where two people with different taste share a living room, transitional is usually where they meet.

Older period names, Empire, Art Nouveau and Art Deco among them, mostly describe antiques, so I've kept this guide to styles still made new.

Contemporary vs modern furniture styles

Contemporary and modern furniture styles get used as if they meant the same thing, and they don't. Modern names a movement with a start date. The Met's essay on the Bauhaus, the German design school that opened in 1919, describes a cabinetmaking workshop that stripped chairs to the minimum. In 1923 the school took up the slogan "Art into Industry" and turned to mass production. Marcel Breuer, who ran that workshop, got the idea for his metal chairs from his bicycle's steel tubes.

Contemporary means what's being made now, so it keeps moving. At the moment it runs to clean lines, square legs and quiet colours. The Decor-Rest 3855 sofa, $2,899 in the 79 inch leather version, is a clean-lined sofa on square wood legs. Palliser calls its Prodigy II swivel glider recliner ($2,949) contemporary.

Mid-century modern furniture

Mid-century modern is the postwar branch of modern, warmer and softer than Bauhaus steel. The Victoria and Albert Museum dates the design of the Eames LCW chair to 1945 to 1946. Charles and Ray Eames learned to mould plywood into curves while working on leg splints for the US Navy. Their chair is made from five moulded plywood elements, aimed, the V&A says, at middle-class American families. Low frames, tapered legs, walnut tones and curved seats are the signs to look for.

The LH Home Allure coffee table ($599) is called mid-century style on its listing, with a walnut-finish solid acacia base under a black marble top. The Cowichan sofa from the Island Living Collection sits on a walnut-finish wood base and is made to order. How that range works is in our write-up of the Island Living sofas.

Scandinavian furniture style

Scandinavian furniture style is the Nordic side of mid-century design, paler and plainer. The Vitra Design Museum's page on the Danish designer Hans J. Wegner (1914 to 2007) credits him with more than 1,000 designs, around 150 of them still made. It sums up his rule as "no more than absolutely necessary." Pale oak or ash, exposed wooden frames, thin arms and air under the seat are the usual signs.

The Scandi Pilot recliner and ottoman ($3,199) is the classic Scandinavian recliner and footstool pairing, in its listing's words. Sleepchest's Stockholm cabinet bed ($2,999) has a clean Scandinavian front and folds out into a queen bed.

Farmhouse and modern rustic furniture styles

Farmhouse furniture style grows out of country furniture, and Canada has its own long history of that. The Canadian Encyclopedia describes country furniture as pieces made after the formal period styles, in local woods, shaped by the maker's tools and skill. In the Maritimes, country makers kept building in older styles from about 1770 to 1850. Pine was often painted to pass for finer wood, and sometimes the paint is the clearest mark of a country piece.

Modern farmhouse keeps the plank tops and painted or antiqued bases, with simpler shapes. Its listing calls the Ashley Fawndell table set ($544 for a coffee table and two end tables) modern farmhouse: light wood-tone tops on antiqued white bases. The Haddigan extension table ($868) has what Ashley calls a straightforward farmhouse profile, seating up to 8 with its butterfly leaf.

Bringing modern rustic furniture into an Island home

Modern rustic is farmhouse with less paint and more raw wood: reclaimed tops, open grain and plain bases. The LH Home Irish Coast extension table ($1,149) is FSC-certified reclaimed pine, opening from 55 to 71 inches. Sunny Designs' Homestead Hills trestle table ($849) sets a plank top on a grey trestle base.

For a modern rustic room, I'd let one rough piece carry the look, usually the table, and keep the sofa plain. Solid wood swells in damp air and shrinks in dry air, so a plank top beside a woodstove needs some thought. Humidity and solid wood in Island houses has the numbers.

Industrial style furniture for a living room

Industrial style furniture borrows from factories and warehouses: black or bare metal, rivets, distressed wood and sometimes casters. It isn't a historical period the way Shaker or Queen Anne is. Its roots run back to the modern movement's comfort with factory materials, Breuer's bicycle tubing included, but the look sold today is a decorating label.

In a living room, industrial sits most easily in the tables and the TV stand, with a soft sofa to take the edge off. Merit's Ashley Hattney coffee table ($324) is metal in a hand-distressed grey, with rivets and lockable casters. Jofran's Loftworks end table ($299) pairs a distressed acacia top with square steel legs. Ashley pitches its Starmore TV stand ($1,315) at fans of urban industrial design.

One metal table in a room of wood reads as a choice. Three or four start to feel like a workshop.

Coastal and West Coast furniture styles, honestly described

Coastal furniture style is a decorating label with no museum history behind it. It means pale or whitewashed wood, light fabrics and a beach-house feel. Ashley sells the Skempton dining set ($1,141 for a table and 6 chairs) for coastal chic or modern farmhouse rooms. Sunny Designs' Marina nesting tables ($299 for three) come in a finish called Beach Pebble.

West Coast style is a different thing. On the Island it usually points to West Coast Modern, which is architecture first. The North Shore Heritage Preservation Society dates that movement to 1945 to 1975, in West and North Vancouver. Local architects fitted mid-century modern to the rainforest climate and to local materials, mostly fir and cedar. Post-and-beam frames, exposed timber, big windows and open plans are its marks.

Home styles furniture for a West Coast house

None of the maker descriptions on Merit's listings calls a piece West Coast style, so I won't pretend there's a catalogue style by that name. In a post-and-beam house, mid-century and Scandinavian pieces in warm wood fit, and low ones keep the big windows clear. Mako Wood Furniture of Surrey makes many of the solid wood beds, dressers and chests we list, and what Mako says about its wood is set out separately.

Shaker and Mission styles of furniture

Shaker and Mission are the styles of furniture here with the clearest rules, and both came from people who distrusted ornament. The Met's essay on Shaker furniture says the Shakers came to America from England in 1774, with more than 6,000 members at their height. Their makers dropped veneers, inlays and carving, used local pine, maple and cherry, and turned wooden knobs instead of buying brass pulls. Their chairs had slat or ladder backs and woven seats.

Ashley describes the drawer fronts and legs of its Landocken chest of drawers ($1,099) as classic Shaker style. Its knobs are nickel-tone metal, though, where a Shaker maker would have turned wood. Mako's Chloe ladder-back dining chair ($499) has the horizontal slats of a Shaker chair back, with an upholstered seat.

Mission furniture is the American Arts and Crafts style. The Met's essay on that movement names Gustav Stickley, who sold "craftsman" or "mission" furniture built on honest construction, simple lines and quality material. His magazine, The Craftsman, ran from 1901 to 1916. Straight square posts, slatted sides and joints left in view are the marks.

Best Home Furnishings builds the Tuscan Mission high-leg recliner ($2,249) with slatted exposed-wood sides and arms. Ashley's Breegin chairside end table ($226) copies the mortise-and-tenon joint as a decorative overlay.