Besides the functional use of furniture, it also has an ornamental use in the living room. If you want to recreate a period lifestyle or adapt your living room to the popular fad of a time period, you may want to buy authentic antique furniture of that time that reflects the particular traits that makes it unique and in keeping with the social taste of the times. It is their link to history and perhaps some astonishing stories from the past that are often passed down with heirlooms from generation to generation that attracts so many people to antique furniture pieces and sometimes make them much more expensive than the brand new items.

An epoch from furniture timeline exudes similar style of craftsmanship, use of material or theme that identifies a piece to belong to that period. To buy an antique furniture piece, you must have good knowledge of furniture history and styles in different countries and periods. People often pass of d\fake antiques that are not even faithful reproductions of the antique you want. It can be quite complicated to identify true antiques, imitations, variations, alterations and restorations and though, the seller may not always intend to cheat you, he or she may have marred the authenticity of the furniture due to lack of skill and knowledge and going for totally incompatible furnishing requirements.

So, buying antique living room furniture requires a lot of research and eye of an expert. Arts and Crafts Movement in America is reputed to produce the best furniture designs and arts craft furniture living room style puts best pieces belonging to this period on display in the living room. The artistic elements of the furniture and its affordability made it popular with the masses. It is quite functional and is also known as 'Mission style furniture' sometimes as the furniture designs were derivatives if Franciscan missions in California. Also known as Craftsman furniture, arts and crafts living room furniture has distinctive design elements and was usually plain and simple. It was quite durable and heavy and had strong joints and was usually made with hardwoods such as solid white or red oak that was quarter-sawed to highlight the wood grain in a special way and was then treated to have long-lasting finish.

Arts and Crafts chairs and tables are generally made up of wooden slats with straight legs that have stretchers in between. The dark leather upholstery was most popular then and quality craftsmanship; good proportions, highlighted wood grains and rich colors mark them as unique. High quality handmade arts and craft furniture for your living room can be quite expensive. Cheaper quality furniture made by machines could also last very long. Victorian living room furniture on the other hand is extremely ornate and had exquisite carving details on display.

The furniture from this era is usually made up of darkest wood unlike light mahogany finish and satinwood that were used previously. The popular materials used for Victorian furniture were dark mahogany with a reddish tinge, rosewood, black walnut and bog oak. Rich deep hue of dark oak was preferred and the size of the furniture was often colossal. The relief work in the furniture included skilful and ornamental carvings of flowers, fruit, animals and human figures. The Victorian furniture used to be quite expensive. However, from today's perspective, we can put it down as massive, clumsy and ill proportioned. Only the cabinetry of the Georgian period is still treasured today.