What is Your House Like? Remember that friend with the nice couch I told you about earlier? Let's go back to her house, a standard 1970's ranch, and look past the couch in the living room to the right a little, next to the squat, brick fireplace. Another bequest from her grandmother: a grandfather clock, standing just a foot shy of the ceiling. Squat fireplace, towering clock. Mutt and Jeff. Ridiculous. But where else in this house could it go? Down the long, narrow stucco hallway? In the bedroom, where the ticking and chiming would keep you up all night? Dining room's too snug.
It's a beautiful old clock, and when she starts the pendulum moving (as she does during every party she throws), it keeps good time. Too beautiful and fragile for storage. Too valuable as a family heirloom to sell. The house can't be remodeled to fit it.
When we buy furniture, I think, we should step back from our immediate situation and look at our immediate world. If I plan to spend the rest of my life in the Boston area, for instance, there is a strong chance that I could find a condo or apartment with a tall ceiling and space between the front room and the bedrooms. Tall dressers and grandfather clocks, no problem. But if I'm standing in the middle of the Santa Clara Valley (as I was recently), I'm looking mostly at a linear lifestyle: the single floor ranch house. Even if I move only once or twice during my stay in either place, local architecture, as well as the average square footage of a typical house or apartment, is a strong consideration in the choice o furniture I would buy.
Another consideration: the age of your domicile. Just where in your 1900's Boston Heritage-controlled brownstone would you stuff that ultra modern Giovanni Tommaso Garattoni collection? I see craigslist postings in your future.
And back to my friend with the Pontiac GTO. He's putting a brand new aluminum V8 in it. When I asked him why he wasn't it keeping it stock, he said, "You live in a 1960's house. Do you have a 1960 refrigerator?" Point taken. For all the financial value of antiques, they have to fit in a modern sense; old iceboxes are cute, but they would be out of place in an Eichler house. And restored gas stoves are a beautiful addition to a restored 50s kitchen, but they aren't as efficient -- or in many cases as hot -- as modern gas stoves.
So the answer seems to be perspective. The furniture, cheap or expensive, should be appropriate to the house, to the neighborhood. Jarringly modern or jarringly old-fashioned will always be to an extent uncomfortable. You don't want uncomfortable furniture.