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Our selection of dark wood coffee tables offer a choice of styles ranging from traditional and retro to contemporary. Find your ideal Dark Wood Coffee Table from our top quality, low priced selection. Wooden coffee tables in a variety of styles and shades, we offer something to suit all tastes.
Browse through our Dark Wood Wine and Spice Racks for matching item ideas.

Looking for a sideboard to match one of the dark wood  coffee tables we have?  We have a fantastic range of dark wood sideboards to offer, why not take a look?

So what is dark wood?
In the right setting dark wood furniture, especially dark wood coffee tables, can look particularly appealing.  But what do people mean when they say dark wood furniture?  Some think of dark wood as anything that is darker than the colour of white coffee – anything that isn’t ‘blonde wood’ – while to others it has to be almost black in colour.  The origin of dark wood furniture is almost accidental, because at one time virtually all wooden furniture would have been light coloured.  Oak furniture from the Middle Ages that is displayed in museums or country houses appears dark or very dark in colour but almost all of it would actually have been quite light in colour when it was first made as this is the natural colour of oak.  

The effects of time on wooden furniture
It is likely the only finish that would have been used to protect this early wooden furniture would have been a coating of wax ‘polish.’  This polish might have been beeswax or tallow made from animal fats but it would not, by itself, have significantly darkened the colour of the wood.  This can be easily demonstrated by taking a piece of freshly seasoned oak wood and applying a coating, or even several coatings, of wax.  There will be no appreciable darkening in the colour of the wood.

Time is the biggest factor affecting the colour of this early or medieval furniture.  During the passage of time wood will naturally mellow and darken in colour due to the effects of the environment.  Add to this the hundreds of years of dirt, smoke and soot to which the furniture would have been subjected and it is easy to understand how this would have fact resulted in the creation of dark wood furniture.  Of course the effect of what antique dealers call patination can be quite attractive and the desire arose to try and reproduce this look, even producing dark wood coffee tables despite the fact that such pieces of furniture were unknown before the Victorian era..  Dark wood furniture became particularly popular during Victorian times due to a revival of interest in the history of the middle ages, known as the Gothic revival.

The response of Victorian cabinet makers was to manufacture furniture from the same materials – mainly oak – and treat the completed furniture with a stain prior to varnishing, lacquering or waxing.  Dark furniture was not all about ‘patinated’ oak however.  The introduction of furniture made with, or veneered with, mahogany proved extremely popular.  Even today, the attractive mid to deep red-brown colouring of this tropical hardwood has assured its continuing popularity.

These two major factors:  the introduction of mahogany to Britain during the Georgian period and the Gothic Revival of the Victorian period, are chiefly responsible for the creation of dark wood furniture.  The inter-war period was also an era that fell in love with the medieval age and the dark wood furniture of that time.  Dark wood timbers also appeared on the outside of houses during this period, with many ‘mock Tudor’ dwellings constructed, particularly in the new suburbs of the larger cities.

Dark wood coffee tables fall from favour
Following the conclusion of World War 2, people were tired of dark, drab colours, dark wood coffee tables and subdued colour schemes – there’s only so much camouflage colouring people can tolerate!  Consequently when the materials rationing of the 1940s and 1950s came to an end there was a surge of designs that used light and colour.  This reaction was so pronounced that the 1960s have been remembered for using the very brightest of colours.  But this wasn't the end for the dark wood coffee table however, as improved design and lighting in homes allowed a revival.

Did you know? An interesting fact about coffee tables
Although coffee started to become popular in Britain in the mid-17th Century due to the efforts of the Honourable East India Company, it was another 250 years until the Victorian era before the first coffee tables appeared.  It is difficult to imagine how the very formal Victorians took to using such a low table, with the relaxed style of sitting and drinking that the coffee table invites.  

Wooden coffee tables in a variety of styles and shades, we offer something to suit all tastes.