Hillsdale Furniture 4808-850 Embassy Sideboard Table Hillsdale Furniture 4808-850 Rich in traditional design this beautiful sideboard table creates the impression of timeless elegance.

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For hundreds of years, sideboard furniture has been gracing the dining rooms of everyone from Kings to the relatively poor. The origins of this category of furniture go back several hundred years to Europe’s upper class. They had a need for furniture that could serve the purpose of storing their dishes, utensils, and all those other things that need a place of their own that is out of site. Of course, the sideboard had to be both functional and good looking.A storage box of some kind that might perform the storage function needed but not look very nice just would not do for the high society of the time. No, this furniture had to be something that would be more of a center piece in the dining room, a conversation starter that would have guests talking about it long after they left. The furniture craftsman of the time had to be true artists in order to give these customers what they wanted, and since the customer was usually a member of the upper class, money was not much of an object. So began the age of the sideboard, but the people involved in those early versions could not have had any idea that not only does this remain the most popular type of dining area furniture, but some of those early pieces are still in use today.

What’s In A Name?

Before talking about the various kinds of sideboards I think it is important to point out that you may have heard this kind of furniture called by some of the many other names for it that have developed over the years. I have already used a couple of these names, but other include buffets, buffet furniture, server furniture, sideboard buffet, etc. You get the idea. In general, any name you may have heard that includes some variation of the words buffet or sideboard and is used in reference to a piece of furniture is sideboard furniture.

A Sideboard For Every Room

One of the reasons this furniture has developed so many names is due to the huge number of uses that people have found for sideboards. The most popular recent development in the uses of this furniture has come in the last few years as large flat screened televisions have gained popularity. It just so happens that many sideboards are the perfect height for serving as a television stand. Better yet, the internal storage of the unit works perfectly for hiding disc players, cable boxes, game consoles, and of course all the wires that go along with those things. Glass doors do the job of allowing the remote controls to work, and instead of having a cluttered television stand you have a good looking piece of furniture with a much more organized look.

Many sideboards end up as bedroom furniture. the internal storage configurations of these pieces allow for a great place to store folded clothes. Most units have at least some small storage spaces inside in addition to the larger more open areas. these small areas make a great place for anything from socks to jewelry.

Some people use sideboards as hall tables. This works great in longer, wider types of hallway areas that just have a need for something to break up that space. Place a sideboard against a wall, put a mirror over it, and you have a great stopping off point for you or your guests to check their look in the mirror before returning to the main part of the house. This is a great way to store extra bedding or anything else you might be having trouble fitting into your linen closets.

Antique Sideboards

Early in this article I talked about how this furniture originated and mentioned that some of the earliest pieces made are still in use today. In truth, there are many of these antiques in existence today. And these are not just sideboards that are kept as novelties. In the vast majority of situations, these antique sideboards are fully functional and serve much the same purpose in the same way they did when they were created so long ago. If you give that some thought, you should be in awe of the skill of the furniture craftsmen of the time. there was no mass production, no modern factories. These pieces were shaped by hand with tools that, by today’s standards, are very crude. Yet the furniture that resulted from their work is among the most beautiful you will find anywhere in the world.

In general, antique sideboards are passed down through generations of the same family. Over time they have become like a part of the family as they have many stories surrounding them and the past relatives who have owned them. Those are some of the reasons why these pieces come with such a large price tag. Many people would never sell such a family treasure, but there is a market for these pieces if your pockets are deep enough.

Oak Sideboards

Many of you have probably heard the term “strong as oak”. There is a reason the saying exists, and that reason is the remarkable strength of oak. Most of the antique sideboards you see will more than likely have been made from oak. While not the hardest wood, it would certainly contend for the title of being the strongest. Of course, with positives like a tremendous amount of strength, come certain things that might be perceived as drawbacks. The biggest of these is probably the inability to get as elaborate of a design in a hard wood like oak as you can in some of the softer wood types. With the modern furniture making machinery today, this is not nearly as much of an issue today as it was as recently as a few decades ago. Nowadays it is more a matter of choosing a wood type for its looks as opposed to choosing it for the detail of patterns you want to have put into that wood.

Pine Sideboards

On the opposite end of the spectrum from oak in terms of the hardness of the wood itself is pine. And so it stands to reason that pine sideboards have always tended to have some of the more intricate or elaborate designs cut into them. Pine is a soft wood, and with that comes the inability of the wood to stand the test of time as well as a harder wood. For the same reasons why oak is the common wood type seen in antiques, the same reasons apply as to why pine is not seen very often in an antique piece of sideboard furniture. Of course, if you do find a very old pine sideboard, it will come with quite a price tag attached to it if it is even for sale.

Mahogany Sideboards

Perhaps the most beautiful of the wood types commonly used in furniture making is mahogany. With sort of a reddish tone to it, mahogany is also a fairly hard wood. While oak and pine are very plentiful wood types, mahogany is much less so, and that is probably the biggest reason it is not used more in furniture making. With less supply comes a larger price tag, and that makes the resulting furniture more expensive as well. All these things combine to make this a more unique version of a sideboard than the other types we have mentioned so far. If you can find the right one to suit your style as well as your pocketbook, a mahogany sideboard is truly a beautiful piece of furniture that would be a fantastic addition to any home.

Ikea Sideboards

It may seem a little odd to have a section about Ikea sideboards, but as you probably know, there are a lot of Ikea lovers out there. That is reflected in the search numbers seen when analyzing what kind of sideboards people are looking for. The nice thing about these pieces are you know what you are getting when you buy something at Ikea. It will most likely look nice and be relatively affordable. You also should know what you are not getting, and that is a piece of furniture that is going to be used for generation after generation of your family. The antiques of tomorrow are most likely not being sold at Ikea today. But as long as you understand these things there is nothing wrong with purchasing an Ikea sideboard.

Teak Sideboards

Teak is an extremely hard wood that is actually not all that popular in furniture making when compared to the other wood types we have talked about so far. There is certainly a niche for teak furniture though, and some people absolutely love this wood. Teak handles weather very well, which is why you see it used very often in marine applications. As teak ages it tends to change color and sometimes ends up with a sort of greyish look. As I said, some people love it while others don’t like it at all. But at the end of the day it is just one more choice for you when it comes to the look and feel of your furniture.

Styles Of Sideboards

After you have decided the general look and material you want your sideboard to be made from, it is time to get more specific. There are so may different themes of decor and furniture that have come and gone through the years, that your choices really are endless. You can lock yourself away with a computer and spend weeks combing through the vast amount of information available online. but at the end of it all, you still have to make the decision. So the best way to handle this is to look around your home and see what general theme you seem to gravitate towards. Keep in mind that sideboards have historically been pieces of furniture that tend to take over the look of the room. This is especially true if you plan on using the piece in the traditional dining room placement. I usually advise people to start with the sideboard and build out from there. The reason for this is no matter how hard you try, the sideboard will likely become the focal point and conversation piece. Why fight the hundreds of years of this furniture’s track record?

Modern Sideboards

The word modern dates back to the year 1585. That is around the same era, give or take 100 years, that sideboards first became popular. With that in mind, it is not hard to see why there are varying ideas of what it really means to call your furniture “modern”. What is modern today will not be modern any longer in a decade, so what are we really talking about here? Well, at the time of this writing the idea of modern furniture was generally considered to be anything that has a sort of sleek, curvy look to it as opposed to traditional squared off corners and other features that you might find on other styles of furniture. That is a pretty broad definition, I know, but this is really one of those things that is determined by what the buyer or user would consider “modern”.

Contemporary Sideboards

OK, here we go again! The idea of contemporary is quite like that of modern. It means different things to different people. According to Ask.com, the definition of contemporary furniture is “Contemporary furniture could further be classified as urban and innovative in regards to current furniture trends”. Well, that sounds a lot like the definition of modern furniture to me. I will make the point one more time that it is most important that the user or purchaser know what these definitions are in their own mind. What anyone else might label their furniture is simply irrelevant.

Having said all that, know that sideboards are available in virtually any look and style you might want. There are varying levels of quality within those styles, but that choice will be determined by each persons circumstances and long term plan for their particular piece of furniture.

Many people change their furniture every few years. If you fall into that category you will not want to spend thousands of dollars on a sideboard. You can get one perfectly suited to this line of thinking for a couple of hundred dollars. On the other hand, if you want to start a tradition in your family and have something special to pass down through the future generations of your family, you will want to do something very different. As we said much earlier in this article, the antiques of today were hand made by true furniture craftsmen hundreds of years ago. If you want to have the best chance of getting what will be an antique of tomorrow, your best bet is to take the same route. Mass produced furniture is not intended to stand up to the workload that this piece of furniture will go through during its lifetime. It simply will not stand up to the test of time like something that is made by hand from quality materials. There are still true furniture artists and craftsmen at work today, but you have to look for them. Check the internet, check your local newspaper. Perhaps your local furniture store even knows someone. they are out there for those who look hard enough.

If you do the proper research and handle the search and purchase properly, you will at the very least end up with a functional piece of furniture for the next few years. At best, you will be starting a great tradition in your family and be giving them a treasure that will stand the test of time and still be in use centuries from now.

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