>Many Americans know very little about their Amish neighbors, who might seem like foreigners in a strange land from an outsider’s perspective. Of course, the Amish are just as American as anyone else, and if you visit Brooklyn in 2015, you’ll see plenty of hip young men sporting Amish-style facial hair.
Unfortunately, the only time most people actually interact with an Amish person is when driving around their horse-drawn buggies on country roads. Or maybe your grandmother had one of those “miracle” space heaters manufactured by Amish builders. The truth is, in the 21st Century, what most Americans know about the Amish is limited to what they see on reality television.
But interior designers, home decorators, handmade furniture hunters, and antique aficionados all love Amish furniture. That’s because Amish furniture is 100% handmade from only the finest, natural building supplies. Amish workshops don’t use cheap plastics or composites to manufacture cheap pieces of furniture in bulk. Instead, Amish built garages and sheds, Amish furniture, and other handmade items are crafted with wood prized for its durability and quality. That’s why Red Oak accounts for about 50% of the building material in Amish workshops.
Besides being much better at building Amish furniture than you, the Amish really aren’t so different than their English-speaking neighbors. The average Amish furniture shop runs for 42.7 hours a week, not unlike a typical retail outlet.
During the Roaring Twenties, American folk art and heirloom furniture became trendy among the socialite set, and suddenly Amish furniture was showing up in the most cosmopolitan fancy Manhattan homes. And because of the incredible attention to detail that goes into every piece of Amish furniture, many of those pieces are still in use today.
Who knows, there will probably be a reality show about Amish furniture any day now.