About Me, Art Deco and Streamline Moderne
Many years ago, I received a waterfall front chifferobe which had formerly belonged to my great uncle who had purchased it in the 1930s or 40s upon taking his first engineering job. I liked it because it had a closet, drawers and a small cupboard and seemed very efficient. Plus I suspected that it might contain a doorway into Narnia. Which it, as it happened, it didn't.
Fast forward thirty some years, when I had an engineering job and had just purchased a house. I had it in my head to have a theme for every room in my house with each theme referencing something that is or was important to me. (This project has been in the works for over 20 years and is not quite complete with a couplerooms awaiting the time and finances to be completed. From this, you might guess that I am not married.) Rooms which required immediate furnishing were the bathroom (Star Wars themed... very subtly), the kitchen (Delorean themed), the living room (pirate themed) and the bedroom (Art Deco and eagle themed). To be fair, my knowledge of Art Deco at this point was limited to waterfall front furniture. While I was aware of other examples of original Art Deco and Streamline Moderne furniture, the prices kept me from thinking about them much.
So I focused on what I knew: my chifferobe. I had had it since I was 10 or so and, unfortunately, it was showing my lack of care. (I intend to refurbish it. Not because it is valuable, but because it is important to me. Once I get to that, I may share photos of the process here.) At the time I knew nothing about refurbishing furniture, so I purchased a set of complete set of matching waterfall front furniture for my bedroom. I also searched out appropriate handles, plate covers, molding and lighting to finish the Art Deco styling. I found a deco style eagle lamp and bookends to tie to two theme elements together.
Fast forward another 20 years when I was casting about for something to research. I love to research. I had spent more the majority of those 20 years researching ship's surgeons during the golden age of piracy, but had grown somewhat weary of that topic. (You can see that web page here if it interests you.) I was still curious about Art Deco design and, remembering how challenging it had been to find the non-furniture items I wanted to decorate my bedroom. So I looked on the internet.
Most of the groups I saw discussing Art Deco were devoted to posting endless images of Art Deco building exteriors, furniture, knick nacks, jewelry, people and similar pop-culture stuff. (The idea that people can be Art Deco always struck me as absurd. Hair styles, personal items and clothing? Yes. People, no.) Many of the web pages explaining how to evoke the style recycled the same 10 or 12 basic concepts, some of which seemed at odds with each other. Few sites explained how the style could be applied to decorating a home beyond those 10 or 12 points and many were only trying to sell design services or antiques. So I started the Facebook group Art Deco Home Decor, doing my best to create rules for the group which restricted images and discussion to those appropriate interior home design.
I learned about the elements of the style as I went along, discovering that my beloved waterfall front furniture was actually the Streamline Moderne style popular in America in the 1930s. So I added that to the title of the group. At first I was delighted by the 10 or 12 point Art Deco concept lists, although the various conflicting concepts bothered me. This led to research and I started to see that Art Deco was much more nuanced than 10 or 12 concepts. And here we are. Hopefully you find something that helps you understand this style and informs your design style the way it has mine.