How To Identify Mid-Century Furniture

The mid-century furniture design style emerged in the middle of the 20th century and remains one of the most iconic furniture design styles in the world.

It was the design style that brought modernity to the masses and after 70 years from its genesis, continues to inspire modern furniture designers, such as Mims Concepts, to this day. Mid-century modern introduced a radical new way of designing living spaces, promoting functional, uncluttered, and open designs.

Mid-Century Furniture Style

The mid-century modern design style is characterized by clean lines, simple shapes, new materials, and organic elements. Because mid-century is about functionality little to no embellishments can be found. Designs were meant to be practical and long-lasting. They were also sculptural and truly beautiful to look at.

Mid-Century Sofas

Sofas have sleek straight lines and are elevated off the ground with angled tapered legs. Their overall shapes are typically rectangular in design. Styles include tight backs and tufted backs sofas.

Mid-Century Accent Chairs

Accent chairs have many of the characteristics already highlighted with sofas but also incorporated more organic curves. 

Mid-Century Tables

Mid-century furniture often has angled legs, and tapered peg legs, which sometimes have brass caps or hairpin legs. Solid wood is popular, but also combinations such as wood and marble, wood and glass, and glossy plastic and metal are all common mid-century looks. 

Mid-Century Beds 

As a general rule, if you decorate your entire room in mid-century modern, the look can often be overwhelming, and you may get tired of it. 

If you’re hesitant to invest in larger items of furniture. There are other smaller pieces you can incorporate in your living spaces to get the mid-century modern vibe, items such as bar carts, magazine racks, elevated plant stands, mirrors and lighting.

Mid-Century Furniture Colors

Popular mid-century modern colors include tones like yellow gold, pumpkin orange, mustard, greens like apple, olive, avocado, warm reds, earthy browns, teal, and even some pastels like pink and baby blue. 

Mid-Century Furniture Materials

After WWII, traditional build materials were scarce, so this led mid-century designers to explore the use of new materials and new methods of construction. This led to the creation of beautiful organic shapes in new materials at the time, like fiberglass, plastic, and plywood. The use of wood accents in mid-century decor comes from the Scandinavian influence and their love for natural materials. Mid-century designs like to incorporate things like plastic and wood or metal and wood - which creates a visually striking contrast of materials.

Iconic Mid-Century Designs

Here are a few iconic mid-century modern furniture pieces that you may already be familiar with, but it is interesting to see how these pieces, were designed 70 years ago, and remain incredibly popular up to this day.

Wishbone Chair

Eames Lounge & Ottoman

Noguchi Table

Diamond Chair 

Tulip Table

Nelson Bubble Lamp

Eames Molded Plastic Chairs

Womb Chair

Where To Purchase Mid-Century Furniture in Toronto? 

Contemporary mid-century modern furniture manufacturers like Mim Concepts have a great selection of mid-century furniture to choose from. Click here to browse our large collection of mid-century-inspired pieces. 

Thank you for reading our how to identify inspired mid-century furniture article. We hope it was helpful. If you need our expert help, with furnishing your home with the top quality mid-century modern furniture, don’t hesitate to contact our mid-century furniture specialists at (647) 673-3986 or via email at heythere@mimconcept.com.