Dark Wood Bedsides

What counts as dark wood?
Just what is the attraction of dark wood furniture and dark wood bedside cabinets?  Well of course the first thing is to decide what is meant by dark wood furniture.  To some, dark wood is anything darker than about the colour of white coffee, while to others it is almost black in colour.  The history of dark furniture is that originally almost all wooden furniture made in Britain would all have been light coloured.  For example, the dark coloured oak furniture from the Middle Ages or mediaeval times seen in museums would actually have been quite light in colour when it was first made as this is the natural colour of oak.  

Dark wood by accident
The only finish that was likely to have been used to protect wood would have been a coating of wax ‘polish.’  This would have been beeswax or tallow made from animal fats but, in either case, it would not by itself have significantly darkened the wood.  To test this claim, simply take a new piece of seasoned oak and apply a coating of wax.  Is there any significant colour change?

What happened was that over many years the wood used to make the furniture mellows and darkens in colour.  Add to this the fact that wooden furniture from these times has been subjected to many hundreds of years of dirt, smoke and soot and the cumulative effect is to produce dark wood furniture.  Of course the effect is not necessarily unattractive and the desire arose to try and reproduce this look, producing dark wood bedsides even though they would have been unknown during the Medieval period.  This was particularly the case during the Gothic Revival of Victorian times when there was renewed interest in the medieval period.

Victorian cabinet makers responded by making furniture from the same materials – mainly oak – and treating the completed furniture with a stain prior to varnishing, lacquering or waxing.  Another event that promoted a liking for dark furniture was the introduction during the 18 Century of furniture made from mahogany.  This tropical hardwood was once thought too hard to use by cabinet makers but improvements in tool technology changed this situation.   

It is perhaps ironic, but it was the actions of British pirates, privateers and buccaneers that prevented British Honduras (present day Belize) falling under Spanish control like the rest of South America and this allowed the mahogany used by Chippendale, Sheraton and others to be supplied to the UK.

Dark days for dark wood bedsides
By the post war period, people had grown tired of dark colours, dark wood bedsides and subdued colour schemes – there’s only so much drab camouflage colouring people can tolerate!  So, when the timber shortages that lasted through the 1950s came to an end there was an explosion of furniture design using light and colour.  It might be thought this was the end for dark furniture and dark wood bedsides but the new homes being built had larger windows and better lighting – which meant the attractions of dark furniture could again be revived.