Reeded furniture is based on the columns of Roman, Greek and Byzantine architecture.
A reeded piece of furniture is one that has a profile consisting of a series of parallel convex moldings. Each individual convex mold is called a reed and protrudes from the furniture to give it some extra visual detail and texture. Reeds can be as small as a few millimeters wide, but can also be as large as a few inches. A reeded chest of drawers is one that has this protruding line finish across its face or top, on the straights of the legs and handle,s or on the individual pull-out drawers. Does this Spark an idea?
Reeding
Reeded pieces of furniture immediately stand out because of their detail. Instead of just a flat sanded finish, reeding gives a piece of furniture a multi-dimensional look by adding raised parallel lines to the plane, or planes, of material. The furniture catches the light by highlighting the raised reeds and shadowing the gaps in between. This can also give the piece of furniture a contrast in darker and lighter colors. Reeding also gives texture to the piece of furniture and feels bumpy and lumpy to touch.
Reeding on Drawers
Reeding can be molded onto the individual drawers of a chest or cabinet. If the furniture frame is not reeded, then this can make a nice contrast between the flat sanded chest frame and the textured drawer fronts. Reeding can also be added to any side of the furniture that can be molded: one chest of drawers, for example, might have only the front side reeded, but another could have the sides, the top and the front reeded as well. Some carpenters and furniture manufacturers might leave the body of the piece flat but reed the legs and drawer handles instead.
History
Reeding is often associated with the Renaissance and Renaissance Revival styles of furniture and architecture. In these periods of design, pieces of furniture were often made to resemble miniature buildings of classical civilizations like the Greeks, Romans and Byzantines. Reeding was specifically used to replicate the supporting columns of famous structures, such as the Rome Coliseum and the Parthenon in Athens. To emulate the structures even further, Renaissance furniture makers reeded the straight legs of pieces to look like vertical columns.
Fluting
Fluting is the opposite of reeding where the parallel lines are carved inwards to create a concave series of fillets, instead of molding the lines to push outwards from the furniture. Like reeds, these can be deep and wide or shallow thin. Fluting also adds texture to a piece of furniture, and each fillet catches the light to change the color and shadow of the surface. Fluting can be used on cylindrical-shaped furniture but is less common on flat structures like drawers.
Tags: piece furniture, catches light, chest drawers, flat sanded, from furniture, furniture that
