|
Design
Terms
Color Scheme
– The color palette used in a home. These colors help define your personal
style. They can be contrasting (pink and red), complementary (red and green) or
monochromatic (various shades of one color, such as light and dark green).
Focal Point
– A visual element in a room that draws the eye, such as a fireplace, a
painting, a piece of furniture or even a color.
Golden Thread
– A common style, color or theme used throughout a house that ties everything
together and makes your home uniquely yours.
Personal
Style – An expression
of your character and preferences. Your furniture style should reflect your
personality, tastes and lifestyle.
Scale
– The proportion or size of a piece of furniture as it relates to a room.
Furniture
Terms
Armoire
– A large cabinet or wardrobe, with two doors and shelves on the interior for
storing clothes or electronic equipment.
Banding
– Inlay or marquetry that
produces a color or grain contrasting with the surface it decorates.
Bombé
– (French) An outward swelling. Applies to commodes, bureaus, and armoires.
Bowfront
– A cabinet front that curves outward to appear convex.
Break front
– A bookcase or china cabinet made of three vertical sections, the center one
projecting forward beyond the two end sections.
Buffet – A small cupboard. The
French definition of the word is "a small sideboard, a place for keeping
dishes."
Bun foot
– A flattened ball, or bun shape, foot.
Bureau
– In America, the name refers to a bedroom storage piece commonly known as a
"dresser." The French word, however, originally designated the red cloth
covering for a writing desk, and, later, was used to refer to the desk itself.
Cabriole
– A graceful, curving type of leg that swells outward at the knee and inward at
the ankle.
Camelback
– A curved sofa back characterized by a large central hump.
Case goods
– Specifically, storage pieces made primarily of wood. More generally, refers to
entire collections of wood bedroom and dining room furniture, including some
pieces that are not storage, such as headboards and dining tables.
Couch
– A 17th- and 18th-Century term for a daybed. Not used as a term for a sofa
until recent times.
Credenza
– A sideboard or buffet.
Dowel
– Headless pin, usually made of wood, used in furniture construction.
Eight-way, hand-tied springs
– Each coil spring is hand-tied into place with twine, interlocking it with
other coils. Using a set of knots, the coils are tied front to back, side to
side, and diagonally across.
Etagere
– A set of open shelves for displaying small objects and sometimes having an
enclosed cabinet as a base.
Gateleg table
– A table with a folding leaf upheld by a leg that swings out like a gate.
Popular in Colonial America.
Highboy
– A high chest of drawers, deriving its name from haut bois, which in French
means "high wood."
KD
– "Knocked down." Term applied to furniture sold unassembled or only partially
assembled.
Motion upholstery
– An upholstered piece with reclining or inclining seating features.
Occasional tables
– A term applied loosely to any small tables, such as coffee tables, lamp tables
and consoles.
Patina
– A surface texture produced by age, wear or rubbing.
RTA
– "Ready-to-assemble." Term applied to furniture sold unassembled or only
partially assembled.
Secretary
– A drop front desk, often with book shelves above and drawers below.
Settee
– A long seat or bench with a high back and often with arms.
Sideboard
– A dining room piece with a long flat top for serving and usually equipped with
drawers or cabinets for storing china.
Trundle bed
– A low bed, which, during the daytime, is rolled under a larger bed.
Veneer
– Thin sheets of wood applied to the surface of furniture for decorative effect.
Windsor chair
– A chair with a wooden or rush seat, pegged legs, and a back of turned
spindles.
Wing chair – An upholstered
chair with a high back, stuffed arms and wing-shaped projectors at head level.
Fabric
Terms
Batik
– Hand-printed material colored by dipping the fabric into dye.
Brocade
– Originally heavy silk with an elaborate pattern in silver or gold threads.
Brocade fabric has an embossed appearance.
Chenille
– From the French word for "caterpillar," so named because chenille yarn is
plush and fuzzy. Also used to denote fabrics made with chenille yarn.
Chintz
– Originally any printed cotton fabric. Now refers to fabric with a glazed or
"polished" surface.
Damask
– Named for the ancient city of Damascus where elaborate floral designs were
woven in silk. Damask is flatter than brocade and is reversible. The pattern
changes color on the wrong side.
Jacquard – Damasks, tapestries, brocades, matelassé and all cloths with elaborate figures
woven on a jacquard loom.
Matelassé
– French, meaning to cushion or pad. Refers to fabric with a quilted surface
produced on the loom. A figured or brocaded cloth with a raised pattern.
Moire
– A fabric, particularly silk, with a watered or wavy pattern.
Ticking
– A strong cotton fabric used to cover mattresses.
Toile
– A sheer cotton or linen fabric.
Leather
Terms
Aniline-Dyed Leather
- Leather which has been colored by dyes as distinguished from leather treated
by pigments or other opaque materials.
Crocking
- Term refers to the rubbing off of colored or other surface substances from
leather onto other materials.
Snuffed Finish
- Leather which has had the outer surface of the grain lightly removed by fine
abrasive paper. Also known as "Corrected Grain."
Spew
- A portion of the oily constituents of leather that comes to the grain surface
in the form of white crystallized or dark gummy deposits.
Split
- A term used to describe the under portion of a hide or skin, split into two or
more thicknesses.
Suede Finish
- A finish produced by running the surface of leather on a carborundum or emery
wheel to separate the fibers in order to give the leather a nap. The grain side
of a leather may be suede-finished, but the process is most often applied to the
flesh surface. The term "suede" when used alone refers to leather only. The
term denotes a finish, not a type of leather.
|
|