Pine furniture, the Ford Model T of furniture
In Britain at least, pine furniture was originally intended for the poorer end of the furniture buying spectrum. People of affluence had their furniture made to order in one the hardwoods such as oak or, if they could afford it, mahogany. If such furniture was the Rolls Royce of furniture, then pine was the Ford Model T; bringing new furniture within reach of more ordinary people. It is partly due to these humble origins that the style of traditional pine coffee tables has such a plain, humble appearance.
Oak was grown in Britain, mahogany was imported across the Atlantic from British Honduras (Belize), but pine was imported in large quantities from Scandinavia, just across the North Sea. During the 19th Century, and even into the 20th, pine furniture was sometimes called deal furniture. This arose from the fact that the stocks of imported pine were traded in quantities known as a deal. A deal might be pine but could also include fir and spruce. The minimum dimensions of a ‘deal’ were, originally, 7ins wide, 3ins thick and 6 feet in length.
It is likely that deal or pine coffee tables would have been bought by the lower middle classes in Victorian Britain, keen to emulate their social superiors in having one of the newly-introduced coffee tables. For the very poorest in society, such items would have remained an unaffordable and pointless luxury. The wealthiest sections of society purchased pine furniture, not for their own use, but for their army of household servants. It is difficult to imagine however, that this would have extended to the provision of such a luxury or frivolous item as a pine coffee table.
The new age for pine furniture
The effects of two World Wars all but obliterated this social order and, in many of Britain’s industrial towns, much of the furniture. When a Labour government swept to power in 1945, people had been inspired by the Beveridge Report and there was a general feeling that everyone should have decent housing, either privately-owned or provided by the state. In the following decades the dark, often damp, buildings of the Victorian age were swept away and replaced with modern blocks of flats in an urge to live in clean, light conditions. The heavy ornate furniture of the Victorian period also became unfashionable and pine began its inexorable rise in popularity.
Shops such as Habitat, opened by a young Terence Conran in 1964, and the suppliers of Scandinavian-style furniture heavily favoured the use of pine. It was light and fresh – and fitted perfectly with a desire for a new style of living. Towards the end of the 1960s it was realised that much of the dark, gloomy Victorian furniture being discarded at farmhouse and country cottage sales was actually pine furniture hiding under generations of dirt and wax polish. When this furniture, including perhaps the odd pine coffee table, was cleaned back to the bare wood it had an attractive light colour, which had been mellowed by age. So it was that the era of stripped pine furniture had arrived.
Stripped pine with everything
In today’s era of uniform mass-production, there is an aspect to all wooden furniture, and pine furniture in particular, that sometimes confuses purchasers. This is the fact that wood is a natural, not manufactured, product and it will change colour as it ages. New pine furniture is an almost white colour but as time passes, atmospheric conditions cause the wood to darken and yellow. This is an inevitable part of the process and all wax, lacquer and other finishes will have some effect to a greater or lesser degree.
The colour of a pine coffee table
Difficulties can sometimes arise when, for example, a pine coffee table is purchased and then followed some years later by another item of pine furniture from exactly the same range. To the consternation of the owner, when the new item is delivered it is likely to be a significantly different shade or tone to the colour of the existing pieces. They will not have noticed the gradual change in colour during their years of ownership. Fortunately however, within a short time of perhaps a few months to a year, the contrast between the two colours will reduce significantly.