Furnishing a Bungalow With Antiques

Art and Crafts Dining

• Bungalows and Arts and Crafts go together. When furnishing an Arts and Crafts bungalow, hunt for pieces in consignment stores, estate sales and on the Internet to ease some of the sticker shock. An original Stickley drop-leaf dining table and chairs might cost more than you want to spend, but solid, well-made reproduction pieces represent a more modest investment. Plus, occasionally, you can find an original that needs a little TLC, offered by an owner or inheritor. Stickley sideboards were small and low, with center drawers and end cupboards decorated with Mission-style dark copper hardware. Look for heavy oak pieces, finished in honeyed or darker tones. Complete an antique dining room with a glass-front corner display cabinet, narrow hutch, Art Nouveau hanging light with rubbed bronze and art glass, and a faded Persian carpet over hardwood floors.

Mixed Mission

• Keep the Morris chair in the corner by the Mission-style built-in bookshelves that flank the fireplace. But add Spanish Mission tiles to the fireplace surround, a wood Windsor seat softened by a botanical print cushion as a second chair in the conversation area, and a boxy sectional covered in mushroom or fawn pseudo-suede. A bean pot lamp on a side table, an overhead Craftsman chandelier of rubbed brass and opaque art-glass lanterns, and a Mission-style stained-glass motif area rug underscore the period character of the decor while blending a variety of interpretations and leaving room for a few modern pieces in compatible styles.

Shabby Eclectic

• Old and worn has its own charm and a whitewashed bedroom of battered pieces, salvaged with clever faux-painting or left as-is, reflects a good eye for light and line. A beat-up spindle bed is fresh and inviting with a coat of white paint, but don't erase its hard-won history. Sand distressed spots to reveal layers of paint or wood beneath, and add a bit of crackle glaze before the final coat of paint to cause small areas of crazing that are common on old painted furniture. A square, four-paned window frame backed with mirror tiles merges old and new into a useful piece that's not too modern. Drape the edges with a few necklaces from a vintage collection. A beat-up bentwood rocker gets a patch or a new cane seat and a down pillow covered in antique linen tea towels or grain sacking. A delicate Murano-glass chandelier of colored flowers tops off the eclectic confection.

Curated Cottage

• A small cottage is a jewel-like gallery for a few featured antiques when you limit furnishings to highlight the stars in your collection. Take your kitchen back in time with a real or reproduction cook stove, not quite the antique centenarian, unless you plan to chop your own wood in the back 40 to feed it. But models from the mid-twentieth century or even adaptations of Victorian porcelain-coated iron stoves with top warming drawers have plenty of character, along with contemporary power and gas hookups. A French terra-cotta tile floor, slate counters and polished concrete farm sink coexist in an unexpected but harmonious juxtaposition. But the breakfast nook displays the prize -- an 18th-century round pollarded-poplar table with branch legs, an inspiration for weathered barn-wood upper cabinets and a mismatched mix of wooden stools and handmade country wooden chairs.