JILL CAMPBELL MACKAY finds there is a piece of pine furniture to suit every occasion and price bracket
THE SHEER beauty of any solid wood is that it has a timeless appeal and stripped pine in particular is a particularly attractive timber. It gives off such a welcoming, warm glow, which enhances any room in the house. It’s got to be the ideal choice when designing a house as few pine pieces have been designed to be ultra fashionable, but rather are workmanlike, usable pieces, intended to be around for many a decade.
In the same way, pine furniture also benefits from not being stuck rigidly in one period. It’s versatile and looks just as good in a predominantly modern abode, mingling with leather and steel, as in a genuine period home. It’s this functionalism that makes it so acceptable, with pine furniture looking quite comfortable in the kitchen, bedrooms, bathroom or sitting room.
The lightness of pine also gives it an added advantage in Cyprus. The genuine mahogany Edwardian dining table set that looked rather elegant in a in a town house in Wandsworth when removed to our sunnier clime can end up looking totally out of place.
In the 17th century, when pine was not being employed to make masts for the ships of the Royal Navy, or in construction of the colonial style homes in Louisiana, it was the wood of choice for the panelling of walls in the grand houses of the aristocracy., acting as a fine foundation for veneers. Then, with the introduction of fashionable hand-made wall paper, the art of panelling homes became passé.
During the late 18th early 19th century, pine made up 90 per cent of the furniture in more humble homes. The Victorian upper class always used oak and mahogany in their own public and private rooms, but bought pine as a cheap way to furnish their servants’ quarters. Then, these tables, dressers, wardrobes, and chests were all hand painted by the staff members and passed on through the generations.
Sadly many of these fine examples of painted ‘heirloom’ furniture, decorated with pale green and rich blue backgrounds, enriched with floral gesso or gilt decoration, have now been lost courtesy of the rigours of stripping. During the fifties and sixties, the cry would go up ‘If it’s pine strip it’ so losing for ever images which may have had up to 15 layers of paint worked on by family members over a period of 150 years. Nowadays if you are fortunate enough to come across a hand painted piece dating back to that period, then the market in antique pine pieces is such that you could probably build a new swimming pool with the money from the sale.
Now there is pine and there is pine and, like everything else we need in the house, the quality and price of pine will vary, with many of us having been stuck (literally) with an overpriced chest of drawers, to find three months later the drawers have collapsed due to the bases of the drawer not benefiting from a solid pine finish.
One man who does know the difference between a dodgy chest of drawers and a proper sliding set is David Clatworthy, owner of the recently opened Tala Pine Store. In his showroom, you can ‘pine’ yourself to almost overkill with a huge selection of furniture, mirrors, pine-surround clocks, and even a portable pine wine cellar.
Even en masse, pine looks good as no two items are absolutely identical, nor is the veneer, but the thing I liked about Tala Pine is the sheer suitability of the items for use here in Cyprus. Our climate dictates a much lighter touch to our homes, with billowing crisp muslin curtains caressing a distressed pine wardrobe being a much more suitable image than a dodgy piece of dark MFI or a heavy mahogany dresser dominating the bedroom. I liked in particular the blanket boxes, a discreetly designed pine window seat that doubled as a storage place for shoes. The long, low five-drawer chest is now earmarked for my spare bedroom, as is one of the large solid pine mirrors, now on sale at £20. Price-wise David can compete with anyone, and as far as quality is concerned this stuff has been sourced from the strong dense forests of middle Europe, and the slow growing pines found on the banks of the river Danube.
Everything is hand crafted by artisans who obviously care about the classic design and finish of their products, from the Queen Anne highboy chest of drawers to the super spacious Welsh kitchen dresser. You would be hard pressed to find better quality pine furniture, perfect for your new villa of apartment. And it should keep going for at least another 165 years.
