Amish Furniture Features

Wood Types

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Amish Furniture

Amish Furniture Styles

Amish Furniture -
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Finishing the Wood

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Amish Furniture Videos

Amish Furniture Features:

Door styles explained

Amish furniture styles vary from each craftsmen, but many use the same door and drawer styles that are standard in the cabinet and furniture industry. This section will explain how to identify the type of style you’re looking at.

This section on Amish Furniture sizes will also help explain how much room is needed to display a quality piece of Amish Furniture.

• Types of Doors (how to identify)
• Door Styles (how to identify)
• Moulding’s and Millwork
• Glass Types
• Edge Designs
• Table Top Designs (shapes)
• Table slides
o Geared
o Non Geared
• Self store leaves
• Face-frames (and Frameless)

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Types of Doors:

Amish Furniture Craftsmen use solid wood doors and drawer fronts in their furniture. One way to tell if a drawer or door is solid wood is to look at the end grain of the piece. If the grain changes directions it may be a veneered board with a particleboard filler (fake).

There are two basic types of doors;
the overlay door (fig 30)

and the inset door (fig 31)


We will explain each of the doors below that Amish Furniture Craftsmen use.

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Overlay Doors:

An overlay is identified by the door sitting outside the frame (fig 34).

If you look at the furniture side profile, the door will be visible. Another factor in the overlay door is how much the door actually “overlay’s” the face frame. If you are having a custom piece of Amish furniture made this measurement is important to the Amish Craftsman.

Take a tape measure and get the distance both horizontally and vertically inside the face frame. Determine how much bigger the door is than the face frame and divide by 2, that is the amount of overlay on each side.

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Inset Doors:

The inset, or flush mounted door (fig 31), sits inside the face frame.

When you look at a side profile of the Amish Furniture the door will not stick outside the frame. This type of door is much harder to build for the Amish Craftsmen as the gap around the door must be cut precise for an exact fit. There must be enough room for the drawer to function, yet enough space to allow the wood to expand and contract with the weather. Many Amish Craftsmen build each door custom for that opening. Amish furniture with inset doors and drawers will command a higher price for the extra labor involved in custom work.

Tip:

Amish Craftsmen build their inset doors to custom fit each face frame.
If you remove doors make sure and label them so they get placed back in the correct order..

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Pocket Doors:

Pocket doors are most often found on T.V entertainment centers built by Amish Craftsmen. This type of door is an inset type door that allows the door to be opened, then a set of rails mounted inside the case allows the door to slide inside. This hides the doors out of the way while watching TV.

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Door Styles

Amish craftsmen use different doors and drawers to achieve the look and style needed for their quality furniture. Amish use solid wood in their drawers and drawer faces, along with quality hardware to last generations.

• Raised Panel
• Flat Panel
• Smooth

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Raised Panel: (fig 34)

Raised panel doors are very popular on Amish furniture. They are built using rails (fig 34 - #2) and styles (fig 34 - #1) cut to the correct width for the project. Amish craftsmen use a router to remove the outer edge of the center section, or center panel (fig 34 - #3), of wood. This gives the illusion that the center section is floating higher than the rails and styles giving the raised panel look.

Depending on the furniture style the rails and styles are also routered on the outside edge to add more detail to the door design. Most raised panel doors on Amish furniture are overlay doors and the Amish use hidden, adjustable hinges.

Shown in fig 34 is a raised panel door. The door is built from 5 different pieces of wood. The rails, or side pieces, identified by #2 is built from solid wood from a router bit that places a special groove in the wood for the panel to sit in (number 3).

The second pieces of wood are the rails, identified by #1 on the photo. This piece has the same groove cut into it, but the end pieces are cut to fit inside the groove from the rails. This gives a glue surface and ties the door pieces together.


Figure 102 shows the side profile of this door. Note how the center panel “floats” inside the rails and stiles. This is a precise cut that must be made by the Amish Craftsman. If the gap it too small the solid wood panel will crack and if it’s too large the panel will wiggle.

The center panel on fig. 102 has a profile cut around the edge by a router bit. This gives the illusion the panel is rising out of the door, thus the name of raised panel.

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Flat Panel:

Flat panel doors have the mission style feel to them. The center panel is a solid piece of wood with the back of the panel routered out, or reversed. This makes the panel edge thinner so it will fit into the groove on the rails and styles. Often the rails and styles do not have a routered design profile. They are most often rounded edges. See the raised panel description which explains how the door is built.

The panel in Fig 102 (raised panel profile above) would be “turned around” so the profile was on the inside of the door and the outside of the panel would be flat.

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Smooth:

These doors are not used very often in Amish furniture. They are just one large piece of wood that has the edges routered. There are no rails and styles.

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Door Designs:

Shown is a photograph of the design on the top of the stile, which gives the door it’s name. Remember that any of these designs can have the center panel flat,raised panel or glass in the panel.

• Cathedral

• Square (fig 34)

• Square with glass panel (fig 41)

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Mouldings and Millwork:

Amish craftsmen use different types of mouldings to accent their Amish furniture. These pieces do not add any structural strength to the furniture. Listed below are some of the more popular styles. This photo also shows the Amish furniture diamond inlays with the arched door design with glass panels.

• Crown Moulding: (fig 39)

Crown moulding gives depth and beauty to the top of many Amish furniture hutches, cabinets and clocks.

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• Rope twist: (fig 40)

Rope twist is used on Amish furniture around the seat area of chairs, center areas of hutches and some Amish Craftsmen use it for a decorative edge around cabinet doors. Often rope moulding is stained a different color to offset the effect the Amish craftsmen was looking for.

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• Mullions: (fig 41)

Mullions are used in Amish furniture cabinet doors to separate pieces of glass and give an old world feel to the Amish furniture. Amish Craftsmen often make the mullions look like individual pieces of glass; however, they are often just one piece of glass and the mullions are just a decorative cut on the door.

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• Dental Accent (fig 42)

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• Corner Blocks

These decorative blocks add dimension to the Amish furniture. They can be used with millwork in your home to tie a theme together.

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• Ship Lap Backing

Ship lap backing is a process of cutting a wave pattern into the edge of the board. This allows one board to overlap the next. This allows the solid wood room to expand reducing the chance of cracking.

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• Tongue and groove backing: (fig 45)

Tongue and groove backing is made from solid wood. It pieces together just like flooring. This gives a unique pattern to the Amish furniture and allows the back room to move, reducing the chance of the wood cracking.

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• Corbels (fig 46)

Corbels are a decorative accent that is often used on the mission style of Amish furniture. This theme can be tied into your room if you have corbels on your fireplace, millwork, etc.

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Glass Types:

There are multiple options for glass with Amish furniture. We have featured the most popular types with a photograph below.

Clear

Beveled

Frosted

Glue Chip (fig 88)

Waterfall (fig 89)

Seedy (fig 87)

Water (fig 86)

Plate Groove

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Edge Designs

This section refers to the routered edge (fig 56) option on many of the Amish built dining tables (fig 71).


The edge design should match the theme of the table set.
Some of the Amish dining table edges can vary from shop to shop, but the common names are as follows.

Roundover edge

Beveled

Mission

Thumbnail

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Table top designs (shapes)

Amish dining tables come in many different shaped tops.
Listed are some of the most popular Amish dining tables shapes. (fig 100)



Round
Oval
Scalloped
Boat Shaped
Clipped Corner
Square
Radius corner
Semi oval (square-round)

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Dining Table Slides:

Geared Slide (fig 120)

The Amish dining table geared slide is built from solid wood. The sections slide inside one another by a groove. The top of the Amish dining table slide has a metal track with a large gear inside. This gear allows the table to “glide” open with relative ease. Often the geared slide tables can only accept up to 4 leaves. This type of Amish dining table slide works best with a stationary table base, like a royal mission table.

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Non Geared Slide (fig 99)

A non geared slide uses a wooden rail system to open the table for leaves. This system is used for legged tables and tables that need over 4 leaves.

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Self Store Leaves (fig 120)

Self storing leaves are very popular with Amish made dining tables. A self store leaf option may have to be req uested when ordering a table as some tables can’t accommodate this option.

A self store leaf utilizes the space between the slides to store from 2 to 4 leaves.

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Face Frames (fig 150)

A face frame is a flat “picture frame” found on the front of Amish furniture. When a piece of Amish furniture is built with this design the Amish Craftsmen first makes a “frame” to the dimensions needed. The Amish craftsmen then add’s the drawer and door openings as needed. The width of the face frame boards vary by design, but are normally from 1.5” to 2” wide and ¾” thick.

After the face frame is built the Craftsmen adds the side boards, often referred to as the “case” to complete the cabinet. Many kitchen cabinets today are made with a face frame built from solid wood. The craftsmen uses plywood or MDF fibreboard to construct the case. The face frame will “hide” the ends of the plywood.

Shown in fig 150 (above) the face frame is “hiding” the stone wall and the “side” board end grain is covered. Chances are your kitchen cabinets are built in this fashion.

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Frameless: (fig 96)

A frameless design uses either solid wood or Plywood as the cabinet. The difference is the “front”, or in most cases it’s the side grain of the wood, is exposed at the same thickness at the cabinet wood.

If your piece is made from solid wood you will notice it will just look like the cabinet is made from a solid piece of wood. The grain pattern on the board will follow from the front to the side.

If your frameless cabinet was made from plywood it will have a piece of veneer (fig 11) glued to the front.

Often the veneer comes from the factory with a heat activated glue on the back. The Craftsmen heats the glue and applies the strip to the edge. This process is very popular with lower quality furniture.

Most Amish furniture is built from solid wood. A quick way to tell is follow the grain pattern. If you notice the growth rings do not follow around the edges of the board it’s most likely built from plywood.

Another trick that lower quality furniture builders use is building the center portion of a case with plywood, then banding the outside 2 inches, or so, with a solid piece of wood. This allows them the ability to router a design on the outside edge.

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