Antique furniture terms

If the appearance and styles of tools and materials have gradually changed and evolved over the years, so did the terms that were used to refer to such. For antique furniture, much of the terms that were used in the early ages are no longer used in today's everyday language. As such, many find it hard to understand the usual furniture terms that seemed so common decades before. However, if one needs to purchase antique furniture, it is therefore essential for him to be aware of the common terms that are used in the antique trade and industry. Some of which are as follow:

Chests of Drawers: The Highboy and the Chiffonier : Both actually forms of drawers that differ in length and appearance. The Highboys are those high chests of drawers which are higher than wide. Such also have bases which are legged. For the Chiffoniers, these are chests of drawers that are also high but definitely narrower than Highboys. Chiffoniers do not have legged bases and there is usually a swivel mirror that is attached on its top drawer. Such types of storage antique furniture were highly popular during the colonial periods where house designs and styles had little closet spaces.

Dish Storage: The Buffet and the Sideboard : Both refer to storage furniture which you can usually find in the home's dining area or kitchen. They are usually used to keep pieces of dishes and serving utensils. Apparently, the buffet is only smaller than the sideboard, but both basically have the same function and appearance. They have drawers were the dishes can be stored, as well as a flat surface above the storage space. The flat surface usually serves as an area where food can be prepared, displayed and served. Most buffets and sideboards also have display shelves and mirrors.

Classic Closets: The Armoires and the Wardrobes : Both appear to be huge closets or cabinets that add storage capacity of clothing. The main difference between the two furniture pieces lies in their original purposes or functions. Basically, the armoires refer to those free standing closets where armor is stored. Such were invented during the medieval times when war was almost an everyday routine. As for the wardrobe, it was basically designed to store clothes and other little personal tools. Aside from the functionalities, most armoires appear to have more well decorated features than wardrobes. Wardrobes also have more streamlined and more modern designs than those that appear on armoires.

The Hybrid Cabinet: Chifforobe : Chifforobes are considered as the prime example of furniture that has storage spaces but will fit small bedroom during the medieval times. Such pieces of furniture offer a combination of the features and the functionalities of the chiffonier and the wardrobe. A chifforobe is basically a two-door furniture item that contains a closet and a chest of drawers.

Three-Alarm Flooding

I found the Steenky Bee via Captain Dumbass when I first started blogging. Jen is one of my favorite bloggers and has cultivated quite an audience in the last couple months. I am honored to have her post over here at 3 Bedroom Bungalow. She is a great mom and a wonderful bloggy friend. Please make her feel welcome while she is staying at the Bungalow.

When the lovely Kat over here at 3 Bedroom Bungalow asked me to guest post while she moved her family to England I was thrilled for a few reasons. First, I love Kat. She’s the second person to ever comment on Steenky Bee without requesting money. Second, she’s moving to England. She’s only person I’ve ever known to make good on the threat “If this country doesn’t get out of the crapper soon, I’m moving to Europe”. I begged and begged her to stay in the States until she at least knew the outcome of the election, but she claims she’s had this move planned for months.

Anyway, her move to a foreign country has brought back memories of a move my husband I made just a little over eight years ago. At the time, we were just newlyweds and shacked up in a tiny, one bedroom basement apartment in Salt Lake City. We had only been living there about three months when we were forced out due to a water main break in a sprinkler line just outside our front door.

When I say “forced out“, I don’t mean that someone actually came and forcibly moved us, unless you count the fireman that showed up at our door after the building manager called them. They eventually gave up trying to stop the flooding and just concentrated on hauling our furniture and other belongings out safely to dry land. I guess in theory, Jeremy and I could have tried to give it a go and live in four inches of water, but most of my shoes had leather uppers and entertaining in those conditions would have been next to impossible. I mean, have you ever been to a water party where you didn’t feel just a tiny bit self-conscious?

Before the fire department arrived on the scene, Jeremy and I were frantically gathering up irreplaceable items like photos, heirlooms and our PlayStation II. When the first fireman knocked on our door, I immediately threw the box of photos I was holding for safe keeping aside and ran squealing with excitement into the bathroom.

As I ran off in the ankle-deep water, Jeremy shouted after me, “Good idea, honey! We’re going to need a few toiletries to tide us over at the hotel for a few days until we get settled somewhere else.”

What was he smoking? I wasn’t in the bathroom packing up shampoo and cotton swabs. The last thing on my mind was where I would be sleeping that night. I had much bigger concerns. If I was going to be hanging around glistening and well-toned fireman that afternoon, I was damn well sure going to look my best. After all, I was the proud owner of many “Three-Alarm Firemen Calendar” years 1987-1999. I knew from studying those things intently that firemen were likely to hang out wearing just those pants with red suspenders and nothing else. They also seemed fond of leaning against fire polls wearing their jackets while seductively staring forward. And for some odd reason, they spent a great deal of their time just standing around in groups of three or four leaning against miles and miles of fire hose. No matter what they were doing, or not doing, to me, they looked like all kinds of fine.

So there I was, locked in the bathroom furiously primping away. Once I freshened up my make-up and got Jeremy to confirm several times that the jeans I was wearing did not, in fact, make my butt look fat, I was ready to approach my first fireman.

When I walked out into the living room I was did my best coy little strut as I cornered the one in our living room. Looking hot proved more difficult than I originally thought. The water was now nearly up past my calf so wading in freezing cold water while trying to look sultry was pretty much out of the question. I was disappointed when I noticed that the fireman who was busy emptying out my book shelf had his shirt on. In fact, every fireman on the scene was fully dressed. They had shirts, pants, boots and everything. Each one of them was even sporting a bulky yellow rain coat. Now how the hell was I going to see any freshly waxed chests if they kept themselves covered up like that?

As the hours passed and more and more of our stuff was being hauled outside onto dry land I grew more desperate. It wasn’t every day I had the opportunity to rub shoulders with actual firemen. While Jeremy was busy calling our insurance company and loved ones, I was dialing every girlfriend I could think of to tell them that they better hurry over to see the firemen at our place. Of course, the only person that showed up was my mom, and being the smart lady that she is, she brought her camera with her so she could get some picture of the hot men in suspenders.

The fire crew eventually left after all our furniture was safely out of the apartment. However, a few of them left even earlier when my mom and I threw buckets of water on them in hopes that they would remove their wet clothing, thereby exposing their chiseled abs. No such luck. Not only did it upset the fireman, but my mom and I lost our bucket privileges all together.

Eventually, almost everything Jeremy and I owned dried out. We were able to salvage most of our valuables including our wedding album, my fireman calendars and our two cats. The building manager put us up in a spacious two-bedroom apartment on the second floor. We had a spectacular view of a pond, a winding walk-way, but more importantly, we had a perfect view of our previous tiny basement apartment. Like clockwork, every two weeks or so, that area would flood completely and someone would call the local fire department out to deal with the mess. I was able to scope them out from the privacy of our apartment window.

Jeremy and I only stayed in our new apartment for about six more months We decided it was time that we invest in a home of our very own. We settled on a four bedroom, three bath nestled in a more rural setting. We wanted somewhere with quiet solitude, somewhere for our children to grow up close to family, somewhere close to good schools and parks. But most importantly, somewhere that had a fire station just around the corner. After all, a girl can never be too safe.

"Will You Accept A Collect Call From Hell?"

So I am officially moving today! I have handed over the reigns to Captain Dumbass from over at Us and Them. He is a fantastic blogger and one of the first people who started reading and commenting over here at 3 Bedroom Bungalow. When I was thinking of guest bloggers to help me out during the move, he was one of the people at the top of my short list. I am so glad he said yes! So help me make the Captain feel at home (Jen take your feet off the coffee table) and please take a min to read through his blog, you won't be disappointed.

So Kat and the 3 Bedroom family are off to England and she's asked me to house sit for a day. Me, a Canadian. From the province of British Columbia. Get it? British? England? Ya, it was lame. I'm scrambling. Kat asked me back in September if I'd like to post and I was all sure, that's two months from now, plenty of time. Now it's November and I'm getting angry emails. "Where's my post, dammit!" Hubby handles bombs for a living, right? Ya, I'll get it done right now.

I'm so envious of Kat and her family. Well, envious in an I'm-not-the-one-who-has-to-

pack-up-my-entire-life-and-ship-it-to-another-continent kind of way, but still envious. I'd love to do it, what an experience! Especially for the girls. I hope they get to travel a bit, not just in England, but over on the continent as well. France is only a short ferry ride or train ride through the Chunnel away and once you're in Paris, well, all the rail lines go into Paris and everything is so close together there. From a North American point of view anyway. I remember taking a bus from London to Inverness, Scotland which is almost the length of the country. It took eleven hours. If I drove north from my house for eleven hours I'd barely be halfway through my own province. Oh, and Inverness is where Loch Ness is. Totally peed in the lake. Take that Nessy!

I was in England in nineteen...ninety? Was it '90? It was before the first Gulf War. I remember because Sadam was firing Scud's at Israel and we decided it might be best not to go there. 1990. That was eighteen years ago. Eighteen years, two kids, one marriage and a house ago. Now I feel really old. Gee, glad I could do this post, Kat.

I had such an amazing time in England. Of course our experiences will be slightly different. I was twenty years old, no wife or children and my diet consisted mainly of barley and hops. I didn't have to put a house together in a foreign country with two little girls in tow. Thank goodness she has friends over there already to help, cause they don't even speak English. Sure those cockney accents are funny when you see them on tv, but just try that conversation in real life. I remember being on a bus in Glasgow that had just picked up a couple of drunken soccer fans. Those guys were on the bus for an hour and talked loudly the entire time. Understood one word and one word only. It rhymed with duck. I'm joking, of course. Somewhat. About them speaking not speaking English, not what happened on the bus ride.

Just think about the blogging gold Kat's going to have. The move alone will give her a month's worth of material. Language differences, driving on the wrong side of the road, strange English tv and strange English people. She's so lucky. Take lots of pictures for us, Kat! Oh, and apropos nothing, when you're on an army (navy, whatever) base in a foreign land, how do holiday's work? Do you get to share in that country's holidays? Just wondering because all of my American cyber-friends are talking about Thanksgiving now and it's making me hungry. Ours was last month and it's so long until Christmas. Sorry, sometimes I wander.

Where was I? England! Right. If you're a regular 3 Bedroom reader and aren't familiar with me, you were probably expecting this to go somewhere, maybe a story or two relating to Kat's move or something. Ya, not so much. Oh, and the title? In the middle of Norway there's a little town named Hell. Obviously 'Hell' does not mean the same thing in Norwegian as it does in English, but when I called my mom collect from there (a month or so after I left England) and she answered the phone at 4am on a Monday morning because I hadn't calculated the time zones correctly, I don't think she saw the difference. What did that have to do with the rest of this post? Nothing at all, but it did make for a good title. Alright, I think Kat wants the keys back now. Good luck, Kat! Write it all down.

Happy Trails To You...

...until we meet again! Happy Trails to you, keep smilin' until then! Don't worry folks, I'll be back as soon as I can. I am also leaving you in the capable hands of 6 of my favorite bloggers who are going to be guest posting here at the Bungalow through next Friday. By then hopefully I can be settled enough to update you on our progress settling into the new country. Make them feel comfortatable, give them comments, you guys know the drill.

Today we are off to Kansas City to spend the night so that we can catch our 6am flight to Minnesota and then wait 12 hours for our flight to London. Needless to say we will be busy bees. Wish me luck. I just may need it!

Monty Python Put It Best

"Always look on the bright side of life!" This is what I am going to have to do until I can get this whole pet situation dealt with, which hopefully will be resolved in the next couple of hours. Hopefully.

On the bright side, last night my good friend Angie, who used to live across the street from me here on this base, cooked dinner for my family and a couple of other families that we are friends with. It was a nice dinner and the kids of all the families got to play with each other for a few hours while us adults sat around and had some nice conversation. The food was great too.

On the bright side, Christine one of my other friends who was at the get together, had a picture of herself, Angie, our other friend Amy, and myself printed out and framed for me. It was very sweet. I am gonna miss my girls when I leave this base, but they are only an email or myspace message away.

Note: This is a before picture of this night. I don't have the guts to post the after picture for fear that Angie would KILL me. Fun Times. Good Night. Well for me, Angie maybe not so much.

Also on the bright side, I will be in England in 3 days. That's right folks, in 3 days this nightmare of a move will be over. No more living in this tiny TLF room. No more having do deal with airlines. No more having to live out of a suitcase. No more having to type blog post while sitting on a pull out couch, watching Playhouse Disney in my pajamas. Well I might still blog in my pajamas watching cartoons, but hey, it's comfortable.

Bright side. On Saturday morning, I will be at London Heathrow airport seeing my best buddy Dawn for the first time since September. This will all be worth it in the end and I just have to keep that in mind and always look at the bright side of life.

I Just Have to Say...

I hate NorthWest Airlines. They have terrible customer service. They do not keep their passengers informed of changes that they have arbitrarily decided and their cargo agents are the worst.

This morning I called the clearing agent and they said NorthWest decided they were not going to ship my animals. They told me as long as my kennel picks the animals up, they will clear the animals. When I called NorthWest, Kimika (yes I am using names at this point cause I am sooo pissed), decided that she would ship the animals if she got confirmation from the clearing agent that they would clear the animals and the kennel would pick them up. I called the kennel and they said they would do whatever I needed them to do (they are waving the white flag of surrender as well). I hope NorthWest realizes with crappy service comes pissed off customers. This pissed off customer also has a blog. I hope I get a million hits on this post and I hope NW see it themselves.

Shhh...there are idiots among us!

I have been on the phone with the airline that shall remain nameless (opposite of SouthEast) since 7:45 this morning in order to get everything square with importing my pets to the UK. They are royal idiots. As I told them 5 times on Friday, I do not have to use the clearing agent to get my pets through customs there. I have even talked to the clearing agent that they wish for me to use, and they say that I do not have to use them. I have the name of the clearing agent that my kennel wishes to use, but they want the phone number and address of the agency. Soooo right now I am waiting on an email from my kennel with the address and phone number of the agency that I wanted to use in the first place, but the airline was being too stubborn to let me use in the first place, but I was right the first time and they were idiots and screw them I get to do it my way even though it took 5 million phone calls and a few dozen emails to get it accomplished. Holy run on sentence Batman!!! I fought the law and I won damnit!! HAHAHAHA! Saved myself around $400 in the process as well. Take that powers that be!!

Now as soon as I am done on the phone to the airline, once again, to give them the phone number and address I am recieving via email, I SHOULD be able to book my tickets for the animals to London Heathrow airport. SHOULD, anyways. Doesn't mean these idiots and the opposite of SouthEast are going to get it right, but we will cross our fingers and hope for the best. Stupid airlines and their stupid airline rules that they don't even know how to apply properly. I win. Oh and I told ya so!

EDIT- Airline arbitrarily changed their mind. They have me over a barrel and I have to do it the way THEY want me to. No saving money. I am still right, they just won't let me be right. Screw them. Off to send import paper work to the agent THEY want me to use and pay MORE money than I want to pay. SCREW them I HATE them and I'll be damned if I will ever fly this airline for ANY reason. You hear that Northwest, SCREW YOU!!