Wooden Rocking Chairs
by Cynthia Taylor
When paging through design and garden magazines, we often overlook the impact that furniture has. Something as basic as a wooden rocking chair can give the area such character. Let’s see how it can be achieved.
Where Can I Buy A Decent Wooden Rocking Chair?
The spirit of the rocking chair has been around since the early 18th century and having derived we suspect that from the original form of a cradle and in keeping with the traditional look a very popular choice is still the basic wooden rocking chair. In most children’s story books and more classical references, the rocking chair is featured quite a lot. One area where these chairs are still found and used today is in the Amish community. The style of an amih rocking chair is quite poignant and in just about every home you will see one. Not all of them are used some are just kept as part of the look. An example of this would be having an antique wooden rocking chair in the living room corner or on the porch.
In most American architecture, the wooden house with a front porch and sometimes a back yard porch are very popular. In the state of Pennsylvania the majority of Amish folk are found to reside there. They came over the seas from Switzerland in the late 1600’s. Since the olden days the order of the Amish church has split into rather distinctive lines and has broken away into ‘old Amish’ and new Amish. Its some what of a tourist attraction to visit the Amish towns as they still dress the traditional way and have traditional ways of living and yes you can bet if you are invited to an Amish home, you will be greeted more often then not by an authentic wooden rocking chair on the porch.
These chairs are built quite simply for comfort and the wood used is flexible yet strong enough to withstand functional rocking. Besides the amih rocking chair which is actually available in that style but there are hundreds of different styles of rocking chairs, one is the Boston rocker. This wooden rocking chair circa 1840 and based on the previous design of the New England Windsor rocker was the first rocking chair to be mass produced. Having numerous additional comforting features, like a higher back and extra spindles in the back rest and a generally more curved shape made these chairs very popular and the line was a lot better as these were machine turned and made.
Another type of wooden rocking chair is the Adirondack rocking chair. This type of chair was very popular in the American culture but fell out of fashion in the 80’s but since has re-entered the scene and has had a very good response since. Nowadays they have been made in various colours and slight variances of style but mostly keeping to original form. They are available to order through the internet or can be found in all out door and most décor shops. They also have a range for kids and also do make just normal lawn chairs that work perfectly as garden furniture or just temporarily out in the lawn. In most photo shoots and in a lot of magazines and even on film sets, you can see the type of modern rocking chairs that they have are ten to one the Adirondack style.
