Utility furniture

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.