How to read an antique French console table: how it was made and who made it, the carving of the Régence, Rococo and Louis XVI periods, gilding and marble, and what may be missing or replaced.
How to read antique wall sconces: what sconce, bras de lumière and girandole mean, how gilt bronze, silver, gesso, tin and quillwork differ, and what may be original, replaced or converted.
What stood in a Victorian bedroom and how it worked: beds, washstands, toilet tables, textiles and daily routine, from Eastlake, Mrs Beeton and American museum pieces.
What a tatami room is, how the mats, sliding partitions and the step up from the genkan shape it, and how Japanese rooms were used, seen through Edo-period prints.
How Art Nouveau furniture replaced the revival styles: Majorelle, Guimard, Bugatti, the forms and materials to look for, and what museum records say about attribution.
How the Japanese folding screen, or byobu, worked as furniture and as painting: its uses, subjects, tagasode screens, and what the museum records suggest asking before you buy.
How marquetry and parquetry differ from inlay and veneer, how makers such as Pierre Gole and David Roentgen built pictures from wood, and what to look at before you buy.
Victorian chairs from the V&A balloon-back parlor chair and the Smithsonian chairs from Robert Smalls's home to Gothic Revival and patent chairs, with what to ask about upholstery, springs and maker's stamps before you buy.
Antique lamps of the oil-lamp age: the Argand burner, astral and kerosene lamps, what the museum records say, and what to ask about originality, finish and wiring before you buy.