Rickety frames, dimpled cushions and fraying seams become telltale signs over the years of furniture that was never meant to see old age.
Sometimes that’s OK. Sometimes people just want an inexpensive piece of furniture they can live with today and then shrug off tomorrow.
Then there are the diamonds and Bentleys of the furniture world: pieces that not only keep their looks and value but become more valuable and desirable over time.
How do we spot these investment or heirloom pieces?
The first tip: Step away from the shopping mall.
Lin Lee, a past Colorado chapter president of the American Society of Interior Designers, says great design – meaning great color, lines, shape and texture – is Point One when hunting for investment furniture. Beyond that, she looks for perfectly built, detailed pieces with fine finishes like burled wood and brass hardware.
“The way fine furniture is made today is the same way it has always been made,” Lee says. “There are no shortcuts.”
That means no stapling, no screws, no glue and therefore no mass production. That also knocks the Pottery Barns and Restoration Hardwares of the world out of the investment- furniture game.
Lee’s Castle Rock living room showcases her pieces worthy of staying in the family like a chair from William Switzer, the Canadian company specializing in carefully reproducing Louis XV, Venetian rococo and art deco originals, and a Henredon sofa, which the designer has reupholstered four times in three decades.
That introduces tip No. 2 for uncovering a good furniture investment: Know thy furniture manufacturers.
“When you collect, it becomes an education process,” Lee says of the industry’s most established fine-furniture producers. “Even if you only have one piece, you want to know everything you can about it.”
Seated among the luxurious Donghia collection at his Boyd & Dreith showroom at the Denver Design District, Brian Dreith echoes that sentiment. He adds that construction and design quality set investment furniture apart.
“American Furniture Warehouse will sell a leather sofa for $500,” Dreith says. “They do a good job of offering good furniture at a good price. But I can’t even sell the leather at that price, because I have better leather that lasts longer.”
Tehmi Marsh at the Denver Design District’s Ebanista showroom lauds that line’s collectibility because of its reliance on long-established processes like hand-carved detailing, ornate wood inlays and hand-rubbed wax finishes.
“It takes four months to have a piece made,” she says. “Like a fine piece of jewelry, these will last more than a lifetime.”
But are all of tomorrow’s antiques so froufrou?
Not according to pop designer and collector Lisa Roberts.
“The word heirloom is tricky because it brings up some preconceived notions,” says this Philadelphia author, whose book, “Antiques of the Future,” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $29.95) is a tribute to modern design icons like the iMac, Alessi’s Magic Bunny toothpick holder and Sandy Chilewich’s tiered, mesh bowls.
Roberts says housewares costing as little as $5.99 can accrue value if they win design awards today, turn up in museum collections or are attached to famous architects or industrial designers like Karim Rashid or Michael Graves.
Her strategy: Collect what you like, do your homework, keep records and preserve that collection.
“Chairs are the thing that most designers want to try their hand at,” Roberts says as advice for the budget furniture collector. Karim Rashid’s Oh Chair, for instance, sells for $55 at karim rashidshop.com. The Michael Graves toaster at Target, which sells for $25, is another icon Roberts believes will become collectible, so long as collectors make their toast in some other machine.
Roberts offers this final tip for investing in lower-cost collectible furnishings: “If you like it enough to use it,” she says, “buy two.”
