apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Mine is a cedar chest that my grandfather gave to my grandmother as an engagement present in the 1920's. She then passed it to my mom who passed it to me. We now use it for extra seating in the livingroom! I love it!

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A tufted, tapered-leg slipper chair that was a staple of my childhood – the seat is round, oversized and overstuffed, and can fit two adults comfortably. My grandmother liberated the pair from an antique shop in the early 40s and replaced the original coral upholstery with beautiful apple-green velvet along the way. I have one, my sister has the other, and they’re the best history in our homes.

A deco veneer dresser that was the first piece of adult furniture I bought after college. I still love and use it.

We have a hutch that we believe is English, possibly from the 20s (actually saw one like it on some Brit-Lit drama on PBS), also one adorable very short chair with a chinoiserie woven fabric, also probably from the 20s.

Great question! I have a table from hubby's gram...I'm guessing its from the 50's. I also have some chairs I got from an estate sale, guessing 50's as well.

I have a chest of drawers and a vanity table that my grandparents bought when they got married. I have several other pieces that they bought at various times, but I think the bedroom set is the oldest.

My oldest piece is a Shaker ladder-back chair from the late 1800s. It's sturdier than the Ikea side chairs my husband bought 5 years ago.

My ex-inlaws -- serious antique collectors -- had an apartment in Paris with furniture from the 1600s and 1700s -- all fully functional (if a bit worm-eaten.) Quality furniture LASTS.

I have a dresser & wardrobe that my great-grandmother recieved as an engagement gift. Sadly, I kept them at my mother's house and years of neglect/ too many cats has completely ruined them. I had the full set, but got rid of the rest a few months ago.

We have a beautiful small Greene Greene side table that was given to us by a former landlord. It had gone through a fire and I quite successfully put off finishing my MA thesis for quite some time as the finish on the table was obviously much more important than one more stinkin' paper on JMW Turner's patrons...

We still love its sturdy delicacy -- we are moving for the first time in 11 years next month, and it's one of about 3 pieces of furniture that we're taking with us...

an art deco buffet... i bought it on craiglist about a year ago. we have a few mid century pieces mixed with mostly new furniture, but this is the oldest...

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A pair of tansu chests from the Taisho era (so, between 1912-1926) are probably our contenders for Oldest Furniture, followed by a dining chair circa 1930s that has a longish history in my original hometown, though we only acquired it a couple years ago.

I grew up with: a late 1600's / early 1700's six-board pine blanket chest (it's huge!), an early Shaker side chair, and a gorgeous four foot tall wall clock from an old railroad station with which I learned to tell time when I was little (in Roman numerals - go figure). I wouldn't part with these three items for a million dollars.

My oldest piece is a foot-powered Singer sewing machine which belonged to my great-grandmother; I recently looked up the serial number and found out that it is turning 100 this year! It came to me with beautifully faded thread and fabric bits still in its drawers. My January project is to buy a belt for that bad boy and get it running for its second century!

We have a late-Victorian armchair that I found in an old barn 15 years ago. It was in terrible condition, but it still had the original horsehair stuffing, which was so cool (though it had to be discarded, of course). I refinished it by hand and had it professionally reupholstered, and it's still holding strong all these years later. Just goes to show how some things were really built to last.

You've all got me beat by decades. The oldest piece of furniture that I've got is my second-hand dining room table and chairs but I have no idea how old it is - maybe 60's or 70's.

Mid century bedroom set (bed, dresser, night stand, vanity dresser, bench) that came with my mother's house. I've had it since I was a kid, wish I'd taken better care of it.

I have a pair of rocking chairs that were in the first Sear's catalogue in 1896. They have been in only two families. And I have a hope chest made by my great grandfather, who was an architect, for my grandmother. He inlaid her last initial in the top, which is hinged. The chest also has a tray. She was born in 1889 and left for college with it in 1906, so it is at least 100 years old. It combines a number of woods, and it really is a work of art. Appraisers I have in the house for other pieces never fail to comment on it.

A double knee hole desk built in 1907 for a train station master in Australia. It has different size & shape pigeon holes & about 8 draws dividing the 2 knee holes. Not only is it practical but it’s also amazingly beautiful!

I think that the oldest thing in my apartment is my hoosier cabinet which I'd guess is from the late '20s/early '30s. (I love it that it's got a rusted knife sharpener on the side and deep, deep grooves in the wood from years use. All that honing!) The style and the look of the cabinet is wildly out of place in my apartment. I keep in my office for storing stuff, but one day, I'd love to see it in an old farmhouse kitchen.

Everything else that I have is from the '40s-'60s. I seldom buy new anything. Period.

I think a more interesting question for me would be, "What's the newest thing you own?" Aside from a new mattress I got 6 years ago, I believe that I have only three new things in my house: a cd rack/shelf from Ikea, white book shelves on brackets screwed into the wall, and bad "retro-style" fake '50s cafe table with two bar stools in my kitchen that I'm dying to replace with something old. (Remind me not to buy new fake vintage stuff again.)

I'm honestly quite happy making due with my old stuff. It's been really fun to find and fun to collect. If it weren't for my dogs, I'd probably be able to add that my furniture tends to wear really well. Alas, even though things do last, I usually have to replace my old couch with a "new" old one every few years.

It took quite a while for this to happen, but I recently off-loaded a '40s dresser set that I had since 1986 for something smaller and more sleek from the late '60s. Fortunately, I love decorating, so when I find a piece I want, I'm usually happy to find new homes for the things that I'm not in love with anymore.

Most of my stuff is from the 40's, 50's, and 60's, which isn't terribly old (to me). But I do have a cool old cast iron cabriole leg bench from the Victorian era. A little research revealed that they were all the rage with people who couldn't afford hand-carved furniture back in those days.

The kitchen table is one my parents bought in the 1960's. All of the chairs have long since bit the dust with the wear and tear of us four kids and the grandchildren who followed. That sturdy maple table now has a whole new generation to sit around it for Thanksgiving dinner.

Right now the oldest piece of furniture in my apartment is the chest in the bedroom. I think it's from the 30's and is of a contemporary design for the period. It's a guess and it came from an estate sale over 20 years ago. it's got blond wood on the drawer fronts w/ darker stain on the top and sides.

I also have a hand made maple chest, a short one with 3 or 4 drawers that sits by my front door as an entry table that was probably built in the 40's, perhaps 50's, I don't know as the fellow who made it was I think in his 80's when he died in the early 80's. It was given to my parents for helping w/ the estate sale as husband of family friends had to sell the house for work (he was a realtor at the time) and there were lots of stuff inside both the house and 3 car garage in the back alley.

When my Dad died, I ended up with it as I had made dibs on it years earlier and I have a cool, traditional styled blue glass lamp w/ it's original white silk shade that I think goes back to the 40's that goes against the modern look I'm after but it's cool and I've not seen another one like it so it's been mine for a good long while that now sits on that maple chest.

The 1920's dresser that I found on the street and painted black and modified to house my 1981 Zenith television that I was given in 1989 (on which I sculpted filigree which I then painted gold) is probably the oldest piece of furniture I own.

But then I also have an old sewing machine cabinet which I also found on the street, but which had a couple of missing drawers in it, and some missing pulls, so I bought some epoxy mold-making material from a wood-working supply place on the web, and made new ones, and then faux-painted them to match the existing wooden ones and had my father carve a new waterfall front for the top drawer, which needed to match a little piece on the opposite side. Long story short -- the whole thing now looks like something that I shouldn't even be able to afford (if you ask me).

But the oldest morsels of decor in my apartment are both framed pieces of "attic stock" of wallpapers that were in the house that my grandmother's grandmother was born in, back in the 1880's.

I couldn't even say. My grandfather was an auctioneer for 50 years (I'm 35 now) so the sheer amount of antiques I have is, well...disturbing. I've got books as old as 18th century and furniture as old.

I have a George Nelson tray coffee table made by Herman Miller between 1948 and 1950.

What a fascinating thread!

Both my drop-leaf table and bed are pushing 100 years old. They needed some prettying up when I bought them, but structurally they're amazing. They're the sort of pieces that lead me to say, "They just don't make furniture like they used to."

I actually think every decade of the 20th century is represented in my apartment's furnishings. Hot stuff.

i have a vintage Grundig console which used to belong to my granparents. i think it's from the early 50's. my mum remembers always being in the house as she was growing up.
it's massive and in dark wood, and is nowadays covered with family pictures, and used as storage space for xmas decorations and such.
i also have a glass pane which belonged in my grandparents house depicting the night, which we took when we sold the house, and that's dated early 1900's.