17th and early 18th centuries American Decorative Art gallery. Most furniture throughout the galleries now sits on the wood floors.

There are several architectural settings that you move through. This room is from the Rowley House, Gilead, Connecticut.

Carved detail in the built-in cupboard.

The bottom of the summer beam has an incised vine carving.

Windsors in the Rowley Room. A low riser painted a contrasting color from the walls.

Mid-18th century gallery. There is spotlighting in the galleries but also large windows letting in natural side-lighting and architectural details on the walls and at the cornice line.

The Garvan from whom all Garvan’s flow.

Most museum visitors have never experienced a high chest sitting on the floor rather than a 6 – 10 inch riser.

Kimball and Cabus Parlor Cabinet, New York, c.1880.

Detail of the Parlor Cabinet.

Like the Parlor Cabinet and many other objects, this table entered the collection after Ward and Barquist published the furniture at Yale.

Top

Top detail.

Murals from the Huntington Mansion, New York, on public view for the first time. Elihu Vedder (1836-1923), Abundance of the Days of the Week.

Drawing room mural, Edwin Howland Blashfield (1848-1936). While visiting Blashfield’s studio as he worked on the mural his friend Mark Twain famously commented, “Well, I don’t know who they are, but I wish I was up there with them, and dressed the same.”

As you get older you start to run across friend’s work in the hallowed galleries of renowned art museums. Wood, metal and diamond brooch by Sharon Church, Philadelphia.

The other side of getting older and walking through decorative art or design galleries is that you’ll likely run across your mom’s vacuum. We had this vacuum all the time I was growing up. If there was ever a problem with it, there was a guy at the corner shop who fixed it good as new.

Henry Dreyfuss phone model 302. This looks like the thermoplastic body version.

Here’s mine. It’s in much better condition than Yale’s and is the first produced metal body version. If you call my house, this is how I take your call.