Utility furniture

SueDonim Yes that’s the way I’m thinking right now, just oil it. That’s what the strippers suggested too.

AuntieE, Yes my parents had one too! Ours was cream, and my mum did use the fold down flap. She would sit me on it to dry me after a bath in the kitchen sink, until the day I fell off into the red tile floor.

Flibberty99 my daughter took hers when she moved house. It was all one colour and never stained though.

Maybe they dark stained them if the wood was mismatched, Casdon and left them otherwise?

My aunt had a cream and red painted cupboard with the pull out metal shelf which I think was aluminium. Their shelf pulled out I seem to remember not flap down. My parents had something similar in cream and blue but didnt have a flap or shelf. Such a useful piece of furniture. Drawers, cupboards amd work top.

When I had a bedsitter in 1970 I had a similar one with a Baby Belling to cook on.
I suppose young people now would need an air fryer, microwave, blenders etc and loads of work top. Coffee machine and more. I could move bedsitters with just a suitcase, Casa Pupo bedspread and a lamp..and did quite often.

I could live in a bedsitter quite happily now!

Flibberty99

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

Yes, just the handles seem to be different.

I’m still using the two sets of drawers from a bedroom set that I had 76 years ago when I was 2. They have been repainted several times and the dressing table mirror removed. The last time was last year when I also changed the drawer knobs. The drawers are so much roomier and well made than those you can buy now.

Shill29 I bet those drawers slide smoothly.

The bedroom furniture my parents bought me when I was 14 was by Vanson. An up market brand sold in Heals. Wow who knew.
Dad must have had a bonus. Lucky me not that I knew that at the time. Their shopping town was Canterbury and I expect thry bought it in a shop called Nathans I think or Masons. Where they must have bought their Ercol pieces.

When I left home at 18 my parents had the Vanson dressing table and wardrobe in their bedroom for 30 years.
Makes me a bit tearful to think of that.

We have an oak Utility table in the kitchen.

I bought it for £1 at a Scout jumble sale in 1979, cleaned off decades of grime, stripped the heavy dark varnish and re-sealed it. Should last another century or so.

I tell a lie. The shop in Canterbury my parents would have bought their furniture in is Lenleys which has been going for 86 years. I wonder if they sold utility furniture during the 40s and 50s.

eddiecat78

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.

You are right eddiecat. The government commissioned the country's top furniture designers to design utility furniture, which was designed to be economical in raw materials (in the way clothes were designed to minimise fabric use) and to appeal to young people.

My parents preferred to bu ysecond hand furniture. In fact I think it is genetic in the family. Both I and my sisters, and my children and now grandchildren go secondhand at auctions, charity shops and ebay before we buy new. DH is the grandson and nephew of an antique dealer and furniture renovator. So I suppose children and grandchildren didn't have much of a chance!

How interesting this is. My late mother in law had a complete bedroom set of furniture of the Mahogany coloured sets. My husband loved it, I hated it, so we stored it on his cousin's farm for years on end until they eventually sold the farm when the milk quota changed. I was happy it was far too big for our rooms then. It went to auction but hardly raised anything.
My late partner had the sideboard in the style of the above chest of drawers in the photo. He was very fond of that, but again I really disliked it. Just shows you what you like is not always the best. I wish I had the solid furniture now. Mind you I bought my Schreiber bedroom furniture in the very early 70s and still have it, it has moved several times and apart from the dressing table which is marked the rest is like new. It still have all the labels in the drawers. I have 7 chest of drawers, 5 wardrobes and a large headboard with side boards included. I still love it. Tried to get the top of the dressing table sanded down, but it has never been done properly just re-laquered.
Funny how fashion changes. We bought our lounge furniture in the late 80s, it is all Mahogany reproduction and to us it was terribly expensive at the time. Now it is not fashionable at all, light furniture even grey & white are, but I still like the dark coloured pieces.

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.

Ooh that's great, I'd leave as is, just oil it as it remains quirky !

Shill29

I’m still using the two sets of drawers from a bedroom set that I had 76 years ago when I was 2. They have been repainted several times and the dressing table mirror removed. The last time was last year when I also changed the drawer knobs. The drawers are so much roomier and well made than those you can buy now.

That looks great too and the wooden knobs fit in n icely with mirror and lamp

My son has the utility dining chairs which were a wedding present to my parents in 1952. My mother had the original blue vinyl seats and backs reupholstered in the 1990s but otherwise they are as they were.

I have a Utility blanket folded into four on top of my duvet. The label reads: Woven wool blanket, 80" x 96", weight 51lbs, price 46/3. The raw edges are neatly edged with blanket stitch. There are one or two moth holes! It certainly keeps me cosy. There's another one in the airing cupboard.

I have a white utility towel that Mum never used.

Lovely and soft, and dries you beautifully.

Thanks Mum, you always said these things would ‘come in handy for someone’.

Also remember the Utility blankets, but think they are all gone now.

I hadn’t heard of utility blankets so I just Googled them. Some pinky coloured ones came up and I’m pretty sure we had at least a couple of those on beds when I was a child. They were itchy through the sheets if the sheets had worn thin! People were so frugal then, weren’t they? Sides-to-middling the sheets, collar and cuff turning, unravelling outgrown jumpers to knit a new one. I still have a hand-knitted toy from babyhood, which is stuffed with wool that’s been unravelled. This was almost 10 years post-war, too.

I remember my parent's utility living room furniture. Big, chunky, dark, and uncomfortable. The furniture in my room was also utility. Knee hole dressing table, big wardrobe and chest of drawers. I was I think 14 when it was disposed of, no idea what happened to it and I was given a lovely light oak set of furniture and a new bed that didn't have metal springs. Utility furniture did last but had a very heavy appearance. Probably the style of the time. I have mainly Ercol furniture. DH made lots of furniture in Ercol style as a hobby. Used to spot a design, he'd copy it with minor changes to accommodate copyright laws.

"I was given a lovely light oak set of furniture and a new bed that didn't have metal springs"

And me! I inherited the middle bedroom when my brothers left home. My Dad decorated it for me, I had a new light oak wardrobe, dressing table, divan bed and a bureau where I was supposed to do my homework. Summertime only, it was too cold in the winter.

I bought from Oxfam a small man's wardrobe for my son's bedroom about 30 years ago. It's fitted with labelled drawers, a tie rack etc.
Last week I gave it to a friend as I am seriously downsizing and as we took it out to her car we noticed it has the utility stamp.
Very pleasing. I had thought it was too ornate, older than that.

Grammaretto what a history that wardrobe has had. Labelled shelves what a detail to be included in "simple" furniture. Utility furniture seemed to be made with such care.

As I said at the beginning if only similar could be made in the UK. Made with smaller houses in mind and made to last.

When I was a child we had a couple of utility ‘tallboys’ as they were called. I don’t know what happened to them.

Non-utility, well made ‘brown’ furniture is not much in demand nowadays, so is often available relatively cheaply in charity shops.
Particularly nice or special antique items excepted, of course.

We had a Tallboy. Cupboard at the top, two drawers beneath. It had a very funny smell. My parents had it for years and now my DS has it. Still has the same pungent woody smell