Humble beginnings for pine furniture
In Britain at least, the pine chest of drawers was originally intended for the poorer end of the furniture buying spectrum. People of affluence commissioned their furniture from cabinet makers and would have it made in one the hardwoods, such as oak. If they could afford it, mahogany would be used. Sometimes it would be a hardwood chest of drawers with veneers of the more expensive woods such as walnut or mahogany laid over the top.
Pine was imported in large quantities and sometimes furniture made from this timber would be referred to as deal. This term was originally applied to the quantity of timber being traded. Originally the minimum dimensions for a deal were 7ins wide, 3ins thick and 6 feet in length. A deal might be pine but could also apply to fir trees, which are also fast growing coniferous trees found in many of the same regions as pines.
Deal or pine chests of drawers might have been bought by the upper working, or lower middle classes in Victorian Britain but the very poorest would have found the price of even a pine chest of drawers unachievable and, with almost nothing to put in it, pointless. The wealthier sections of society would have purchased pine chests of drawers, not for their own use, but for the use of their army of household servants. This was the era when many children left their families and entered ‘into service’ at the age of 12 or 13.
New era for pine furniture
Two World Wars all but obliterated this social order and, in many of Britain’s industrial towns, much of the furniture. In 1950s Britain, everyone would have decent housing, either privately-owned or provided by the state. Dark, gloomy, buildings of the Victorian era were swept away and replaced with modern blocks of flats in an urge to live in clean, light conditions. Heavy ornate Victorian furniture became unfashionable and pine began its inexorable rise in popularity.
New shops such as Habitat and the suppliers of Scandinavian-style furniture used pine. It was light and fresh and fitted perfectly with a desire for a new style of living. It was perhaps towards the end of the 1960s when it was realised that much of the dark Victorian furniture from farmhouse and country cottage sales was actually pine furniture hiding under generations of layers of dirt and wax polish. When this furniture, including many pine chests of drawers, was cleaned back to the bare wood it had an attractive light colour, which had been mellowed by age. The era of stripped pine furniture had arrived.
The dawn of stripped pine
Many new businesses, including our supplier CPW or Country Pine Warehouse, were started to capitalise on this new fashion. They would find antique or Victorian pine furniture, strip it and sell it on. This helps explain CPW’s expertise today in manufacturing traditional styles of solid pine furniture.
There is an aspect to all wooden furniture, and pine furniture in particular, that sometimes confuses purchasers. This is the fact that it will change colour as it ages. Brand new pine furniture is almost white in colour. As time passes, atmospheric conditions cause the wood to darken and yellow. It is an inevitable part of the process and all wax, lacquer and other finishes will exacerbate this effect to a greater or lesser degree.
The colour of a pine chest of drawers
Problems may arise when, for example, a pine chest of drawers is purchased, followed some years later by another item of pine bedroom furniture from exactly the same range. When the new item is delivered there will be, to the consternation of the householder, a disparity in colour between the two as they will not have noticed the gradual change in colour during their years of ownership. Fortunately, within a short space of time, perhaps a few months to a year, the contrast between the two colours will reduce significantly.