The fainting couch is late Victorian...like 1900 to 1910.
The picture of the sofa doesn't show enough to make a determination.
Linda C

Mmm . . .no help at all, just here to drool!

If memory serves me correctly, weren't you thinking of a leopard rug in your living room long ago? I LOVE the rug you have now, and that little touch of leopard is perfect!

I have never seen anything like that fainting couch . . .WOW.

Lovely, lovely! You've managed to create a very elegant look without it being stuffy-- it's so very warm and inviting!

O, I have no idea on the date but I have say, they are lovely. I wanted to ask you about the fabric though. I purcahsed a settee for $130 off of craigslist that has to be recovered. I would love to do it in black leather but that may be out of my price range. How does the velvet wear? What happens if you are sitting on it and say, spill some coffee because your 2-year-old bumps you. How about dust on it? Thanks.

Mclarke, thanks so much for your sweet consideration!

Linda, sorry about that... I can't move the coffee table by myself; it weighs a ton. Maybe this picture of the chair will help. The sofa has the same carved wood pieces on the lower front, and a leg in the middle. Thank you for the date range.

Anele, thanks! I'm relieved to hear you say it's not stuffy. I also worried that sofa would look like it came out of a saloon on Bonanza -- what we in our family call "early whore decor!" hehe

I think I did consider a leopard rug, yes. What a memory you have! I stumbled upon the rug you see there late one night on CL and instantly emailed the guy. He let that rug go for $50 because he was in a hurry to get out of town. I thought I would look forever to find a rug that went okay with both the FC and the sofa. The picture in his ad was horrid. I almost didn't go to see it but then thought I'd be crazy not to go. One look, and even though it was dirty, I knew it was perfect. So I grabbed it and one more rug from him (the one in my DR) and ran! Got 'em home and immediately shampooed them both and they look brand new.

I have seen a few of those FCs on line... not exactly like mine, but somewhat. I think they are fairly rare. The onew I've seen have been more Eastlake style. I paid $500 for it out of the Little Nickel many years ago. It had just been reupholstered in fabric that did it NO favors, and I promptly reupholstered it myself to look like this...

Oh, you will really laugh at this. The oval on the back was not diamond tufted when I bought the piece. I phoned my local Hancock's and they said come in Wednes and ask for Debbie so I did and she showed me how to sew the diamonds. I covered my own buttons. I didn't want to drill holes in the back of the "headboard" piece. So I put a cardboard backing on the oval and pulled the buttons tight through the cardboard. I couldn't figure out how to anchor the buttons, so I anchored them to bobby pins! Then I stapled the oval on and hot guled the trim around it and nobody was the wiser. lol! I told this upholsterer that and I forgot to as him what he anchored to, but I'll bet he used my same piece of matt board.

I loved that fabric on it. It made the wood just sing. But it clashed with my newly recovered red sofa. I had a pro do it this time, as a bracing board that ran the whole length of it was worm eaten and had broken. I lacked the tools and skills to repair that. The upholstery guy replaced that rotten board and made sure the whole thing was sound again, and retied some of the springs as well, and new padding so it's more comfy.

Here is the chair that goes with the sofa:

I forgot to mention that the FC folds out into an early version of a hide-a-bed. Whatever matress was there is long gone. It hinges at the front two corners, and you open it by grabbing the seat in the back (where seat meets back) and pull up, forward and down. It rests on the hump on the left and the right side sort of floats up in the air with no support, so I imagine your head would go on the hump end and your feet on the floating end, and it would have slept two. The carving on the lower front isn't really carving; it's pressed. The carving on the back is separate pieces attached. So I know it was not an expensive piece in its time, but I just love it to bits and will never part with it if I can help it, except to my kids.

Do you need some more or different angle pictures? Or does the picture of the chair clear up the mystery of what you can't see of the sofa?

Tishtosh, thank you! The velvet wears well -- it's the same thing they put in the antique British sports cars, and in the old movie theaters. Remember the scratchy velvet we sat on in the theaters in our shorts as kids? Well, that's it, except it comes in different grades I think. Mine isn't scratchy like that... but the old velvet covering was softer. Mohair velvet sells for about $300/yard. I was lucky to find enuf for both sofa and chair for $300 on eBay one blue moon day. My first reupholstery job on sofa and chair were regular upholstery velvet and it wore really well. Do NOT use a steam cleaner on it!! I have a young Wheaten who jumps on this all the time, so I usually keep it covered with a croched granny square afghan of about the same color, plus a kind of a wool shawl thing I throw over the back of it. For kids and spilled coffee, you can't go wrong with a chenille tapestry like I have on the FC. Those wear like iron and show nothing!

Okay, I got on my belly on the carpet and took these to help with identification (so that's where that dog ball went!)...

Does this help?

While we're talking about decorating rules, I think you have to have a good imagination (well, if you like to DIY). You should have seen this sofa and chair when I found them! They were covered in a very scratchy, nubby, horrid old gold fabric and they were so filthy you felt like boiling yourself in Clorox if you touched them. I mean they had a half inch of standing dirt chunks on them, no kidding, they were lose-your-cookies dirty. I couldn't look at them without wrinkling my nose in disgust.

But I knew the bones of them were almost exactly like a sofa I'd seen in a gal's house, covered in a deep blue velvet, that made me go weak in the knees it was so beautiful. They were exactly what I wanted, and because they were in such bad shape, the price was right. The store owner had them hidden away in his basement buried under a bunch of stuff as a project he hadn't tackled yet. So it was my imagination that made me buy them.

Another moral of that story is when you go antique shopping, ask to see the stuff they haven't cleaned up yet.

I've seen that same kind of imagination from so many of you here with your "before" and "after" projects! We DIY types need to be able to "see" that silk purse when we look at the sow's ear.

That sofa and chair is almost exactly like the one my great-grandmother had. I can only remember back to the 1960's and the velvet was worn thin then. The original material was a blue/brown velvet pattern. BTW, my great-grandmother died in 1980 when she was 94 years old. I would imagine she had had those two pieces for a long number of years before I was born.

Holley, then your great grandma would have been born in 1886. How lucky you were to have known her! I never met my great grandmothers. Yours would have been 20 in 1906, and 30 in 1916. So maybe she got hers around somewhere in there. Was the back of hers diamond tufted? Or plain?

Oceanna, I am sorry to say I'm not much help here. I don't know Victorian furniture in enough depth to venture an opinion. But your sofa and chair are quite graceful, which can't be said for all things of that era.

Those of you who do know this era well, would you say that the sofa and chair are earlier, maybe from the east coast? They also put me in mind of the "frontier" towns, like St. Louis and Chicago? As to the fainting couch, there has always been a lot of the pressed-back oak among California Victorian and Edwardian styles. How might it relate?

Thanks, Bronwynsmom. I know you are so knowlegable about antique furniture. It kind of looks like nobody knows. I also put a quickie post in the Antiques forum directing help here, but no takers. :(

My guess on the fainting couch is it dates around 1900-1915 maybe?

Is there a name for the style of the sofa and chair? If I had a name it would be easier to research online.

Oh, Tishtosh, I forgot to answer one of your questions. Oddly enough, yes this red mohair velvet does show dust! Gotta vacuum it every so often. But then, vacuuming our furniture is a good idea anyway, right?

Red sofa and chair - 1930s-50s The thin, curvy wood frame around the upholstered part was ultra-popular during that time, and was called "Hepplewhite" although the designer by that name never made anything like it. It's really a lightened-up Victorian ornate. Those look like the earlier end of the spectrum.

The other - 1890-1910 often called a "bed lounge". My 1897 Sears catalog has a couple very much like it. They were part of the wave of combination furniture that was popular with the move to city apartments.

Thank you Lazygardens!

I just found this sofa, said to be 1914 and it looks a lot like mine...

...and this one (obviously reupholstered) said to be "circa 1900"...

...and this one said to be 1930...

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Bed lounge, huh? Interesting. Thank you for letting me know you saw them in the 1897 catalog. I remember seeing them in a 1915 Montgomery Ward catalog, too, so they must have been popular for quite some time. It's strange there aren't more of them. Interesting that this style came with a move to city apartments. That makes sense.

In the past I found a couple of these on the web, but always in the Eastlake style, which I wouldn't call this one.

For those who have never seen one of these, I just took a couple of pictures of it opened up...

I imagine there was probably a blue ticking thin matress in there when it was first made? Because you wouldn't want to sleep right on those coil springs.

Anyway, until I saw this one I never knew there was such a thing.

Oceanna, that bed lounge is the neatest thing! I have never seen one, but so useful! Anyway, my great-grandmother's sofa back was plain, I believe. My mother got the set after she passed away and had it recovered. Then I had it for a while and had it recovered again. Then I gave it back to my mother after we built our house - unfortunately the scale was just wrong. :( Not sure what my mother did with the set. She probably sold it. She's been on a selling spree for the last couple of years.
As for the date, I think you're right, probably around 1900-1915. DH just stopped by to see what I was doing, and he is more expert than me. He says 1880 to 1920.