Design Details That Are Often Present On Distressed Western-Style Furniture

Design Details That Are Often Present On Distressed Western-Style Furniture

4 November 2019
 Categories: , Blog


A furniture store that specializes in Western-themed furniture and home decor will often have a variety of styles of furniture. One popular choice is distressed furniture, in which the pieces have the appearance of furniture that has been in use for years or even decades. Distressed Western-style furniture can be fun to add to your home because it offers a warm, lived-in feeling. You can buy several different pieces of furniture that fit within this theme, but if you're shopping for a chair or a sofa, here are some design elements that you'll often find present.

Discolored Leather

Leather is a popular type of covering for Western-style chairs and sofas, and you'll often find these pieces of furniture in several different colors. When the furniture is distressed, it's common to see discolored areas of the leather. For example, if you're buying a chair with a brown leather covering, you may notice that the seat of the chair is lighter than the sides — as if to suggest that people sitting on the chair for countless hours over the years have rubbed some of the color off. Of course, this is merely a visual effect, and your chair will be plump with plenty of support — unlike a chair that people have used extensively.

Rusted Metal

Western-style chairs and sofas will often have various metal elements. A chair may have metal legs or arm supports, while a sofa may have metal accents along its edges. Metal tacks that hold the leather to the frame of the furniture, for example, are common. When you buy distressed pieces, you may find that some of the metal on the furniture appears to be rusted — thus giving it an older, well-used appearance. In many cases, the metal isn't actually rusted but is simply finished in a manner that looks like rust.

Worn Wood

If your Western-themed furniture has any exposed wood on it — something that is common in this type of furniture — it may show signs of wear if you're buying something that has been distressed. There may be small dents in the wood or tiny nicks out of its edges of surfaces. The wood may also be worn in different areas — for example, if a chair has wooden armrests, the wood may be lightly colored where your arms sit, which is indicative of a user's arms slowly wearing the wood stain off the wood over the years.

For more information, contact a company like Black Carriage Furniture.