Utility furniture

Apparently they were marked with a CC41 stamp. Called the 2 cheeses as each C had a bite out of it. Every day a schoolday.

I inherited some utility furniture from my parents. There was a small oak wardrobe and a dressing table. I'm pretty sure the wardrobe was very early G Plan. I had intended to keep the wardrobe but it was so heavy it was difficult to get upstairs!
We sold the dressing table and the wardrobe went to Sue Ryder.

We have a Utility Tallboy that's still in near perfect condition and used every day.

When my mother went into residential care 27 years ago she still had the bedroom furniture from when she married in 1932.
We brought it home and contacted a local housing charity who were delighted with it.
One large wardrobe with drawers at the bottom, a chest of drawers and a dressing table, the mirror on the dressing table was fogged but they didn’t mind that.
I think they had been wax polished almost every week since new.
We bought Stag bedroom furniture in 1960 and I still have a wardrobe and a tall chest of drawers in a spare room.

The utility market meant it was government approved and guaranteed for durability and quality. There was also a shortage of raw materials including wood after the War so important it was made to last. We had dining chairs with the mark on. I used to turn them upside down and make a tent.

In those days people used to buy second hand furniture much more and newly weds would be given family furniture - once they stopped living with family and got their own newly built council house.

eddiecat78 I didn't realise that the G Plan factory made utility furniture.

We don't have any from that era as we disposed of most of the furniture from our parents but we do have G Plan bedroom furniture from the 1960s/70s.

I find on the whole that utility furniture is so plain that it’s quite ugly, not helped by that thick brown varnish on much of it. It’s serviceable, but the vast majority isn’t to my taste. I do like Ercol and some of the other slightly more aesthetic pieces though, and they still get healthy prices. There is some beautiful antique furniture going for a song on auction sites these days, which if I was looking to buy furniture now, I’d go for any day. You can still buy good quality British made furniture new, but it’s definitely a more expensive option.

Casdon I know what you mean but the utility furniture we had was a light oak and had curved sides and doors. It has been likened to Arts and Crafts in design. The designs were simple and solid.
The heavily varnished pieces I agree were ugly. Maybe we were just lucky. My dad's desk is probably oak or walnut and is a light colour. I still have their Ercol pieces. Table and chairs and a bureau. So I am lucky. They are valued now for their design, workmanship and simplicity.

That furniture is so much more durable than the chip board items you get now. These days one sneeze and these things fall apart! I know that the dark colour is not to everyone's taste these days but it can be sanded and painted, I need bedroom furniture and wish i could get one of those lovely sets of wardrobe, dressing table and chest of drawers. the wardrobes usually had drawers underneath marvellous for out of season jumpers or blankets sometimes with shelves inside, one i had had one shelf labelled hats!

I think we’re in tune HelterSkelter1. I do like some utility furniture, it’s just that the vast majority was of the dark brown, heavily varnished, and heavy plain shapes, which people probably didn’t love even then, but there was nothing else available. Your father obviously chose well.

I think the utility furniture must have looked very modern and desirable to young families. Don't forget those young married couples would have grown up with very dark ornate Victorian and Edwardian furniture.
The items I inherited were quite pale and "arts and crafts" in style.

I have had several utility pieces and so have some of my friends.
I never saw much of the dark varnished sort - most people I know had paler woods.

Presumably, as eddicat says, they wanted a change from the Victorian dark woods.

This is what Safari says
Characteristics of Utility Furniture Finishes

Authority and Standardization: The government's Utility Furniture Advisory Committee, led by Gordon Russell, focused on functional, honest construction using available timber like oak, beech, and mahogany, often paired with cheaper secondary woods or plywood.

The Dark Finish: Because timber supplies were restricted and varied widely in quality and color, manufacturers often applied dark stains or varnishes to create a uniform, respectable appearance that masked mismatched woods.

Contrast with Pre-War Styles: While pre-war commercial furniture was often heavily ornate and dark, the Utility scheme aimed for clean, simple lines inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement. However, the practical need for a standardized protective finish meant that dark varnish remained very common.

My parents had utility furniture in their bedroom. They had a double bed, wardrobe, dressing table with triple mirror and a tall boy. I know they had bedside tables but I can’t now visualise them. They were light wood, probably beech, and Arts & Craft style, with frames round the edges of the doors, like a Shaker style. The wardrobe was fitted out with hanging rails, a full length mirror and a tie rack. I think but can’t quite recall, that the lid of the tall boy either lifted up or there was a top shelf that pulled out for access.

It all went when they downsized in the 80’s. I didn’t even know it was utility furniture, or what that even meant, back then! I still have a utility sewing box. It fell to bits some years ago so I had it restored. It had a pink silk lining but I changed it to green. It’s on tall legs so it can act as a small table, though it’s next to a bed at the moment.

I have a classic utility chest of drawers, now very fashionably Mid Century Modern of course. It was left behind by the previous owner in the first flat I bought in the 80s. It had many thick layers of paint on it so I recently had it professionally stripped. They did an amazing job because the ply laminate is quite fragile. The only issue being that it is made of several different coloured woods, reddish brown drawers and much lighter ply on the top and sides. I’m currently not quite sure what to do with it - even up the colours potentially with wood stain or just accept them as is and oil it. To my eyes it is very beautiful though, and very much in vogue.

My son has his granny's utility sideboard which is still quite serviceable and quite nice to look at because it isn't heavily varnished. My own sideboard is an Arts and Crafts one that my grandparents had. I think it may have come from Belgium and I've always liked it.

When my mum died I gave away the utility furniture she had. I really wish I’d kept it.

Flibberty99
That is the same chest of drawers I had in my shared bedroom when I was 6. So 71 years ago. I think my sister had a large dressing table. I had a much smaller one. Which may have been victorian. When we moved when I was 14 my parents bought me a 60s dressing table, wardrobe and chest of drawers. Not Stag nor Gplan but similar. I still have the dressing table and chest of drawers in our spare room here. The wardrobe we left for the next owners with their permission when we sold my parents' house 30 years ago. I hope they aee still using it as it was simple and timeless.
I shall be sad if I have to downsize and leave them behind.

Flibberty99

I have a classic utility chest of drawers, now very fashionably Mid Century Modern of course. It was left behind by the previous owner in the first flat I bought in the 80s. It had many thick layers of paint on it so I recently had it professionally stripped. They did an amazing job because the ply laminate is quite fragile. The only issue being that it is made of several different coloured woods, reddish brown drawers and much lighter ply on the top and sides. I’m currently not quite sure what to do with it - even up the colours potentially with wood stain or just accept them as is and oil it. To my eyes it is very beautiful though, and very much in vogue.

Could that be by E Gomme Ltd who later went on to become G Plan? The style looks rather similar to mid-century G Plan.

We have a utility table and chairs in our kitchen .Belonged originally to the DH’s parents. Still sturdy and strong.

We had such solid furniture growing up huge solid teak pieces of wardrobes, dressing tables and chest of drawers. The type that you could climb on as a kid. I remember my dad and uncles swearing profusely when we moved house and they had to move said furniture. Sadly i could not have it when parents passed and went in house clearance. I have wasted so much money on Ikea "furniture" wish i could have kept them now.

That’s the style my parents had, Flibberty. Those wooden handles - I can imagine the very feel of them right now.

I’d keep your chest of drawers as it is, it has its own beauty, with the differing woods.

My parents had a kitchen cabinet of thin metal, painted light green on the outside and white inside, it had two top cupboards above a fold-down flap that had cupboard space behind the flap that was hard to reach into when the flap was down.
There were two cupboards under the flap as well.

The flap did not work well, so we never closed it.

I understood this to be Utility furniture, but perhaps I am wrong.

My parents married in 1947, so most of our furniture was what my grandparents could spare, supplemented with bomb-boxes, cartridge boxes and orange or sugar crates that my mother converted into useful small cupboards.

She had apparently been thrilled with the metal cabinet - the only piece of entirely new furniture she possessed, apart from my moses basket and baby bath of paper-maché.

JennyRenn it doesn’t have a maker name on it but it does look like the Gomme ones.