Furniture Woods

Today, most furniture is made from ash, pine, gum, and poplar. Additionally, pine, fir, and other inexpensive woods are often used for hidden parts. Rarer woods, such as most of those listed earlier, continue to be used in high end furniture and as veneers.

Hardwoods and Softwoods

There are two types of woods:

Hardwoods
Softwoods

Whether a furniture wood is a hardwood or softwood is not dependent on its relative hardness. In fact, some hardwoods are actually softer than some softwoods. The true difference is that hardwoods are deciduous trees that lose their leaves and go dormant in the winter and softwoods are evergreen, cone-bearing trees.

Hardwoods include oak, ash, cherry, maple and poplar. Softwoods include cedar, fir, hemlock, pine, redwood and spruce. In general, hardwoods are more expensive than softwoods, because the wood is less abundant. But even some hardwoods, such as gum, can be relatively economical.

Unique Variations in Furniture Woods

Unlike artificial materials, furniture woods do not have a completely uniform appearance. In fact, no two pieces of furniture wood are exactly alike. Two boards from the same tree can have different characteristics in their appearance, including subtle differences in color. Each tree develops its own grain pattern and texture over the course of its lifespan. Younger wood or “sapwood” that’s closer to the bark of the tree has a lighter color than boards from the center of the tree. These variations in appearance do not affect the strength or durability of your furniture. Instead, they make each piece of wood furniture unique.

Stains on Furniture Woods

A wide range of stains, including stains named for hardwoods, are used on furniture woods in the finishing process. This can sometimes confuse consumers since furniture described as “Cherry” may be made from a different species of wood that was finished with a cherry stain – usually medium to dark red-brown, although some “natural cherry” finishes may be considerably lighter.

Maple, walnut and fruitwood stains are also frequently used. Each has its own range of color, lighter brown for maple, darker, grayish-yellow to brown with deeper overtones for walnut, for example. Fruitwood stains are typically similar to light-colored apple or pear wood appearance, not actual fruitwood, which is often finished with just a thin wash of brown stain. Because of this, many furniture woods can be stained to look like other furniture woods.

Open-Grained and Closed-Grained Furniture Woods

Each species of tree contains a different cell structure. The tree’s cell structure determines the grain of its wood. If cells within the wood are large (open-grained), the texture of the wood may be slightly rough and filler may be used to smooth the wood. When cells are small (closed-grained), the texture of the wood is naturally smooth. While hardwoods may have small or large cells, softwoods are considered closed grained.

Ash, walnut, oak, rosewood and mahogany are all open-grained woods, whereas birch, beech, cherry, maple and poplar are closed-grained furniture woods.

Furniture woods are selected for the character of their grain and their color. Woods with very distinctive patterns are usually more treasured and woods with less distinct grain patterns are often stained to enhance the appearance of their grain.

Characteristics of Common Furniture Woods