When new inventions like stoves, sewing machines and radios first came on the market, they seemed jarring and out of place next to people's furniture. Manufacturers learned that these devices would sell better if their mechanisms were hidden behind stylish cabinetry or fancy decoration. Fashionable parlor furniture inspired the ornately scrolled and pierced iron legs of this elaborately decorated sewing machine.

This heating stove was intended to blend with furnishings made in the Victorian Aesthetic Movement. Aesthetic designers sought to transform Victorian taste away from popular revival styles toward something new and elegant. There was no single Aesthetic style, rather a common set of design motifs, including stylized botanical forms, and an interest in elegant decorative tiles, which appear on this stove.

This television was at the top of R.C.A.'s 1949 line. It sports a 16 inch screen described as "America's Sweet 16" in the company's advertising, when the standard screen was only 10 inches. Most importantly, the case could blend into the owner's Queen Anne style decor, with its hand rubbed walnut or mahogany finish. This model was also offered in Federal and Modern style cabinets.

In the years just after World War I, Americans loved listening to music on their phonographs. Thomas Edison's Diamond Disc Phonograph Company was at its peak of production. Styled to harmonize with parlor or library furnishings, the case was designed in the popular Colonial Revival style, hiding the workings of the phonograph behind fine wood and inlays.