Traditional type prefers a classic, time-honored approach to decorating and to life. With Traditional is defined a sense of history and admiration of decorating styles that have evolved over the years and these tendency toward balance and symmetry, fine antiques, classic period pieces, floral prints and richly finished dark woods or rich colors like navy blue, burgundy and hunter green stands out in traditional spaces.

Whatever your individual style or taste, it is important to know how to identify each style. If your best friend brags about the “To-die-for Louis XV side chair, “dah-ling”,” would you know what the heck she was talking about? Well, here is a primer on Traditional Dining Room Furniture types that will help you appear to be an expert whatever your neighbor buys next!

A. English Traditional Dining Room Furniture
A simple and comfortable Traditional Dining Room Furniture style with lots of upholstery arched cabinetry and turned legs. Elaborately carved walnut was the wood of choice.

Queen Anne – This Traditional Dining Room Furniture style is hallmarked by graceful and lovely S-shaped cabriole legs. This style usually has limited ornamentation.

Victorian – Overstuffed chairs and elaborate and ornate woods are elements of this Traditional Dining Room Furniture style. Dark woods and elegant fabrics are also indicators of this style.

B. French Traditional Dining Room Furniture
Louis XIV – Very ornate and massive Traditional Dining Room Furniture is the hallmark of this style. But while the pieces are enormous, their lines are straight and often rectangular.

Louis XV – This style features smaller scaled furniture, although it continues to be extravagant and ornate. Curves appear instead of the straight lines of Louis XIV. This style inspired a much-used fad of the 50s and 60s called French provincial.

Louis XVI – This style is more subdued or subtle that earlier French Traditional Dining Room Furniture styles, It has classic, almost Grecian lines that lack decoration and carving.

Empire – This Traditional Dining Room Furniture style inspired other designs around the world such as Duncan Phyfe, Sheraton and Biedermeier. The Traditional Dining Room Furniture was massive, but symmetrical, with gently bowed fronts or legs.

C. American Traditional Dining Room Furniture
American Traditional Dining Room Furniture was influenced by English and French styles and eventually evolved into a uniquely American style.

Contemporary Modern – With its roots traced to the Bauhaus school of art in Germany, this Traditional Dining Room Furniture was simple, clean and geometric.

These are the Traditional Dining Room Furniture styles on which most décor is based, but I know of at least two others that I have used extensively in the past – Early Thrift Shop or Late Graduate Student.

However, Traditional Dining Room Furniture made of wood continues to flourish along side the more dramatic and stunningly designed contemporary pieces.

Typically, however, a modern home is furnished with a mixture of contemporary furniture and traditional or antique pieces. Thus, for example, alongside the modern low slung sofa or near the steel and plastic dining room table, an antique chest of drawers or side table reminds the occupants of the home of their traditional values.

However, a taste for the past can be satisfied by pieces of furniture produced by contemporary manufacturers using Traditional Dining Room Furniture designs and decorations. Such pieces of dining room furniture combine the attractiveness of traditional craftsmanship with the advantages of modern materials and technology.