11
Apr, 2026

Knowing Which Little Acorns Our Oak Furniture Cometh From

The majority of the oak furniture coming in to and being supplied in the UK comes from European oaks. These originate from England, France and Germany. There is a massive supply of white oak to be sourced from eastern United States but this timber is not generally used for UK supplied furniture.

Great oak forests of ancient England are thought of very fondly – oak has a very special place in the collective UK heart. There is an old saying that England was built on oak. The tradition of using oak as preferred timber goes back centuries and it was always the case that the Christmas yule log was an oak log suitably decorated with mistletoe and holly. There were swathes of oak forests covering much of the land and our ancestors would carry oak acorns for luck and to ward off any illnesses. The Romans, Greeks, Druids & Celts all professed the oak tree to be magical. In fact Roman soldiers went as far as to wear oak leaf crowns when celebrating victories. Before we got to the point we’re at now, where to have a genuine British oak barn, summer house, conservatory or any number of suites of top class furniture, there has been hundreds of years of our exploitation of this magnificent tree.

Te English Oak is actually a memer of the beech family. It is still our national tree due to its extraordinary height, the venerable age it can reach; legendary strength and just general acceptance that it is truly the king of the trees in UK. Oak trees have in fact been here far longer than human beings and remnants have been dated to about 300,000 years ago. Fortunately it is still the commonest tree and every so ofren we feel the love and make a big fuss of our oak trees. After all the ship building that commenced in the 17th C, some might wonder if there were any oaks left here but those oaks were grown for that purpose. Furniture made from 14th C oak is still available today, but at an extra high premium, as you would expect. The antiques today were just what was left – families used to break up and torch surplus items – seems criminal now, doesn’t it!

Featured image credit: Paul Seling for Pexels.

23
Mar, 2026

Flooring That Keep It’s Looks Whatever Happens

It can be very difficult to know what to do when choosing new flooring for a family home. In the sitting and living areas, it is so lovely to have that warmth provided by a luscious wool carpet – in the deep mid winter, it does make you feel that bit more cosy. In the 1960s and 70s, the advent of central heating in modern homes seemed to coincide with the move away from wooden floors and large rugs to fully fitted carpets. Our own family moved into a brand new house in the late 60s and we enjoyed the novelty of having wall to wall carpet – not wool though, that was very much out of the budget. Ours was a modern made made nylon mix, from memory. I do recall the odd crackle when anyone moved too quickly over the sitting room one in particular. Dad used to say it was a build up of friction and electricity. We just accepted it and made sure we didn’t do anything too fast – it seemed quite a common thing to occur so we never questioned it. Fitted carpet was so popular and cheap compared to wooden flooring, which would have been in the form of parquet squares or tiles. We even had fitted carpet in the family bathroom – that seems unbelievably crass nowadays and definitely a hygiene risk.

The kitchen in that house was tiny – it seems unbelievable now to think back that housewives accepted these ghastly little sculleries with no fitments – just the sink unit with shelves underneath. When we look at the amazing features that family kitchens have become these days. Definitely no carpets! Most kitchens are the social hub of the family space now, so practical flooring is more important than ever. It has to be safe, no possibility of slipping. It also has to offer beauty that complements the cabinets and overall kitchen features. One thing my own kitchen has which at the time we moved in did not seem problematic, but now that there are aged, less nimble hands doing the housework, the very hard ceramic flooring is completely unforgiving when a favourite bone china mug slips from the grasp! For some reason they fare slightly better when bouncing off the wooden floor in the L shaped sitting area. But the ceramic floor is so much easier to keep clean and is much more water tolerant, but the wooden floor has the beauty and reflects the sun in that special natural way.

22
Feb, 2026

Looking After The Wood Whilst We Still Can

There will always be problem areas in a house. Once that new bloom has worn off, there are going to be some parts of a house that get more wear and tear than others. When this house was being built, the developer’s sales agent was tasked with getting buyers to splash out for ever more incentives – such as offering to upgrade on carpets and wardrobe doors etc. The idea waas to catch the buyer who thought they would not bother with buying through the developer, thinking it would be cheaper to go to a carpet emporium. But the incentive offers were always too good to be true. For the carpeting, the offer was if the buyer agreed to pay for the entry level 30 ounce per square ft and chose the same colour throughout the house, the developer would offer the top upgrade of 50 ounce per square ft plus the top quality underlay. This was in fact a fantastic deal and we gladly took them up on that. The result was the most gorgeous quality, dense Honey coloured carpet was laid throughout. From memory we had to contribute a miniscule amount towards the services of the professional carpet layer. He laid carpet in every wardrobe footwell as well as cut small samples for us to use when matching for curtains and soft furnishings. He also left lots of offcuts for us to use as infills later on as necessary.

This was so wonderful when we finally moved in. The goreous colour and soft but thick feel of the carpet was easily as exciting as us moving in at all. The only problem with this was the master of the house deciding it was ok to traipse in from the cold garage, into the lush Honey carpeted hallway. After a very short period, the immaculate hallway began to lose it’s looks. Oily patches and footprints began to spring up and before we knew it, the hallway was completely wrecked.

Getting this rectified was a no go. We hired a professional carpet cleaning company. They did their best but it was no good. Up came that hallway carpet with the garden room that lay beyond. These were replaced by smart thick wooden flooring, in the most attractive ‘sunny’ shade. I have been able to mop with damp mop and a bucket of warm to hot water. After so many more years of very hard wear, lots of mopping with a damp mop – albeit proper wooden floor cleaner – the once gorgeous golden coloured lathes are scratched and worn away. Time for another make over by a professional who will sand down my worn down floor and bring it back up like new. How absolutely fab!