Chap­ter 12 – “Sev­en Ages” of Fur­ni­ture opens with a humor­ous but sharp obser­va­tion of how Amer­i­can cou­ples evolve in their tastes for home décor, often with­out know­ing exact­ly why. At the begin­ning of their mar­ried life, most young cou­ples fur­nish their homes with mis­matched items—gifts from rel­a­tives or left­over pieces with no aes­thet­ic cohe­sion. These ear­ly arrange­ments feel more func­tion­al than inten­tion­al, reflect­ing a stage of life defined by prac­ti­cal­i­ty rather than taste. There is lit­tle room for artis­tic vision when fur­ni­ture is inher­it­ed rather than select­ed. These bulky, out­dat­ed pieces fill the space, but they say more about the couple’s lack of agency than any sense of iden­ti­ty. It’s not just a lack of style—it’s the result of begin­ning adult­hood under the shad­ow of oth­er people’s choic­es.

Then moves into a more dec­o­ra­tive, though equal­ly unsteady, phase: the Japan­ese-inspired peri­od. Here, the young wife takes her first real ini­tia­tive in shap­ing the home, lay­er­ing it with silk fans, bam­boo tables, and gauzy cur­tains. While the effort reflects per­son­al growth, it’s dri­ven more by fads than an under­stand­ing of cul­ture or design. Ori­en­tal trin­kets and paper lanterns appear not as acts of cura­tion but of imi­ta­tion, nod­ding toward a dis­tant cul­ture with­out engag­ing its mean­ing. Her taste expands, but superficially—mirroring an aes­thet­ic awak­en­ing that is earnest, yet pre­ma­ture. This shift, though flawed, marks the couple’s attempt to move beyond hand-me-downs and into a world of their own mak­ing. It’s a tran­si­tion­al stage of enthu­si­asm over exper­tise.

Finan­cial pros­per­i­ty invites the third phase: one of indul­gence cloaked as refine­ment. Flush with mon­ey, the cou­ple replaces their makeshift aes­thet­ic with elab­o­rate but unhar­mo­nious fur­ni­ture, gild­ed mir­rors, tuft­ed satin, and over-designed inte­ri­ors. Their home becomes a show­room of lux­u­ry, but not nec­es­sar­i­ly of good taste. Inlaid woods, mir­rored cab­i­nets, and carved con­soles dom­i­nate rooms that feel heavy rather than ele­gant. The pur­suit of beau­ty is sin­cere, but guid­ed by cat­a­logues, not com­pre­hen­sion. Every new pur­chase reflects a desire to prove they’ve arrived, yet the result is more chaot­ic than cul­tured. Wealth, instead of empow­er­ing thought­ful design, enables excess with­out restraint.

Lat­er stages attempt to bor­row sophis­ti­ca­tion through imi­ta­tion. They try to emu­late the somber grandeur of Eng­lish coun­try hous­es with dark wood, stained glass, and heavy drap­ery, pro­duc­ing what the author wry­ly calls an “eccle­si­as­ti­cal junk shop.” Their home begins to resem­ble a pas­tiche of reli­gious sym­bol­ism and bor­rowed nos­tal­gia, devoid of inti­ma­cy. When they even­tu­al­ly build a grander house, they swing toward French opulence—gilt-framed mir­rors, bro­cade uphol­stery, and mar­ble busts fill every cor­ner. But instead of reflect­ing nobil­i­ty, the design feels strained, like a cos­tume worn with­out con­fi­dence. In both phas­es, the cou­ple is chas­ing authen­tic­i­ty through repli­ca­tion, rather than dis­cov­er­ing their own style. They want their home to speak flu­ent­ly in the lan­guages of aris­toc­ra­cy, but they’re still learn­ing the gram­mar.

Even­tu­al­ly, dis­il­lu­sion­ment sets in. The expen­sive fur­ni­ture no longer excites, the lay­ered styles feel dis­joint­ed, and the cou­ple begins to sense some­thing hol­low in their metic­u­lous­ly curat­ed envi­ron­ment. They real­ize their jour­ney through design hasn’t been one of artis­tic enlight­en­ment, but of trend-fol­low­ing and mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion. There’s a qui­et humil­i­ty in this realization—they final­ly acknowl­edge that gen­uine taste requires guid­ance, study, and emo­tion­al intel­li­gence. The home is no longer just a social sym­bol; it becomes a mir­ror for their own growth. They begin to val­ue restraint, bal­ance, and mean­ing over flash and imi­ta­tion. Their focus turns not to impress­ing oth­ers, but to cre­at­ing a space that reflects who they are—not who they want­ed to appear to be.

This chap­ter offers more than a satire of inte­ri­or design—it cri­tiques how cul­ture is often con­sumed rather than under­stood. As the cou­ple pass­es through each “age” of fur­ni­ture, they rep­re­sent broad­er soci­etal trends where wealth sub­sti­tutes for knowl­edge and dec­o­ra­tion replaces depth. True artistry, the author sug­gests, is not found in what mon­ey can buy, but in how thought­ful­ly space is con­sid­ered and lived in. The evo­lu­tion of their home becomes a metaphor for the evo­lu­tion of character—a slow, often mis­guid­ed, but ulti­mate­ly human pur­suit of mean­ing through mate­r­i­al expres­sion. In rec­og­niz­ing their lim­i­ta­tions, the cou­ple opens the door to some­thing more last­ing: the pos­si­bil­i­ty of taste shaped by truth rather than trend.