If you hear the word “pine” and experience a not-insignificant shudder down your spine, then chances are you had a cheap, orange-tinged chest of drawers or otherwise in your ’90s childhood bedroom. But while pine—a softwood defined by its brown knots, smooth exterior and relatively straight grain—was once an interior faux pas, it’s now enjoying a renaissance.

Whether clad wall-to-wall in more daring spaces, or simply deployed in chunky table and chair form, Google searches around the affordable wood have peaked at over 5,000% globally in the last month alone. Meanwhile, at second-hand furniture site, Vinterior, sales of pine furniture—including Swedish mid-century designs and Victorian larder cupboards—jumped by 500%, with sales holding steady into 2025. Anecdotally, Instagram is full of people showcasing their pine buys, with Rainer Daumiller’s knotty round table and chairs a particular favorite. And British furniture designer Faye Toogood recently harnessed Finnish pine when creating her Peace Outdoor Lounge Chair in collaboration with Vaarnii.

Toogood x Vaarnii’s Peace Outdoor Lounge Chair.

Photo: Jussi Puikkonen

“There has been a noticeable shift back towards using beautifully traditional pine in recent years – the kind you find in Victorian houses,” says interior designer Hollie Bowden. “I particularly love the work of the Swedish architect and designer Axel Einar Hjorth, whose Utö Chair is a favorite.” A cult classic that was only produced until 1938, prices for the Utö chair now fetch up to $6,400 for a single chair, thanks to its versatility and simple yet rustic and robust form. Designers, including Rose Uniacke and Pierre Yovanovitch, have them in their own homes, such is their appeal.

Interior designer Beata Heuman puts “pine-o-mania” down to Hjorth’s influence: “To the absolute stunned amazement of my [Swedish] parents, Axel-Einar Hjorth’s early 20th-century furniture has made a huge comeback, and I think his work has greatly contributed to the pine resurgence,” she says. “Those chunky pine pieces are perhaps not ‘beautiful’ but they are certainly cool, adding tension to a scheme by virtue of looking somewhat odd. There is an abundance of pine in Sweden, so this look is particularly prevalent and feels a little less sexy since it’s so commonplace.” For Heuman, the Utö works best as a one-off statement: “Artful in isolation, it feels tongue in cheek because of its naïve simplicity,” she adds.