Cane Furniture - Elegant and Durable
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, 03-07-2011 at 09:54 AM (2175 Views)
Cane furniture is a very popular style of furniture for placing on a front porch or sun room. There are also styles used for setting in the living room. These are more common in households where there isn't a lot of rough activity or animals to tear up the cane structures. Since this type of furniture is created from a material that is thin, it is torn easily. Wicker furniture is made from the cane of rattan stalks, but it is also combined with some plastic fibers. Although it is a very light type of material, cane is sturdy enough for making furniture out of.
When people describe furniture made of cane, they often are referring to wicker. It is common for bamboo furniture to also be labeled as cane instead. Bamboo has a much larger stalk than the rattan cane used for furniture, so it is more commonly used for the construction of homes and similar large structures.
Wicker furniture was typical in ancient Egyptian times. There are even some antique wicker furniture pieces that are highly desired by collectors from all over.
For people who love the beauty of cane, but want to have something a bit more durable, furniture made from plastic or resin can be purchased. The appearance of cane usage for these furniture items still provides a beautiful piece of furniture, without the worry that weathering will damage each piece. These require a lot less maintenance than actual furniture from woven cane. Deciding to purchase an actual piece of rattan furniture means that it will need to be placed in an area where damage won't occur.
Creating furniture seats from woven cane products is known as caning. This involves weaving the fibers together to form a flat, fibrous sheet that can be placed in the seat area of a chair. Some rattan vines used for caning can be about 500 feet long.
Caning used to be a common art among chair makers, but it isn't seen used that often on everyday chairs. Most seats for chairs are constructed from slabs of wood instead of being woven from cane.
Typical furniture styles created with cane include wide sofas with high backs, tall chairs that are either very wide or extremely narrow, and long low tables for setting in front of the sofa and chairs. Some furniture sets also come with ottomans for resting feet on. There tends to be a tropical feel to these pieces of furniture. Many are lined with numerous cushions or overstuffed pads of some sort. These additions to sofas and chairs make them quite a bit more comfortable for lounging in.
Depending on what type of cane furniture it is, each piece can run from around 30 dollars into the thousands of dollars. Wicker furniture is often the cheapest form created from a cane product. There are chairs that only have the seat made from cane woven together, but the type of wood the cane is combined with will usually determine how high the price is. Overall, this type of furniture has a very elegant feel to it.