Wood Types

Like people, unfinished wood furniture comes in all shapes and sizes. Pine is great for some jobs, oak is best for others. No wood is always the best choice. Use this guide to help unravel the knots.

It's ingrained

Wood gets its flexible strength from layers of hard and soft fiber, formed in a year's growth cycle. In a cross-section, these layers are concentric circles, or rings, one for each year. Fast-growing trees like pine have thick, porous rings that are light and flexible, while slow-growth trees like oak or walnut have fine, tight layers that are rock hard and brittle.

Fast growth is a key advantage of pine. It is far more bountiful and easily replenished, making it an environmentally green choice. The wider grain is lighter and more flexible, perfect for furniture that gets moved a lot and sees a lot of action. Houses are built of it. Pine furniture will dent instead of chip, bend instead of splinter. It's ideal for low-maintenance applications like children's furniture, rec rooms and cabins. Oak has a tighter grain than almost any other wood. It is battleship strong and resists denting. Floors are made of it because it resists denting. It's also very heavy. Oak furniture is built to last, and to stay put. Quality bedroom furniture, elegant dining tables and library chests are all good uses for oak. Because oak grows so slowly, a narrow ring each year, it is expensive to harvest and is used with respect.

Come to your senses

Because craftsmen have known for generations when to use oak or pine, we instinctively relate differently to each wood. Pine furniture feels casual and friendly. The honey-colored wood is cheerful and bright, and it look great painted. Pine even smells like the outdoors, because it's so full of life.

Oak looks richer and more formal. It finishes darker, and glassy smooth. Its tight grain swirls elegantly, inimitably. Dent oak furniture (if you can) and you'll feel as bad as if you chipped Grandma's china plate. Nobody paints unfinished oak furniture, any more than they would spray paint a brass bed.

The one thing they have in common: both unfinished oak and pine furniture are easy to stain and varnish, even for beginners, and the results are beautiful and satisfying.