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Solid Wood Furniture: What Does "Solid" Wood Furniture REALLY Mean?

Solid wood furniture is a somewhat misleading term. Commonly, when we refer to solid wood furniture, we mean a piece made out of a solid chunk of wood and generally we're referring to a hardwood, like the five most common woods used for furniture discussed below.

The 'other' kind of wood, which is usually labelled as not being solid, is some kind of composite like particle board or plywood. A particle board is human-formed of sawdust and chips of wood, mixed with resin or glue, then pressure treated to form a solid board that can be used for furniture. Plywood is made of strips of wood that are glued together and pressurized to form a solid slab that is most commonly used in construction, but can also be used for furniture.

There is disagreement about whether particle board and plywood are actually "solid woods". In a way they are because they're constructed only of wood with nothing added. But regardless to technicalities, when we speak of solid wood, we mean solid slabs of wood fashioned into furniture. The five kinds of wood below are the most popular used in furniture today.

WOOD	Resistance	Hardness	Comments
Mahogany	good resistance to shrinking, warping, splitting	a softer hardwood	easy to work with, makes beautiful stained pieces, great curves
Cherry	good	very hard	dyes well, grain is usually straight & it stains well
Oak	good	medium	stains easily, easy to carve, heavy, straight-grained, hard, tough, very stiff, and strong
Maple	good	very hard	sometimes difficult to detail
Walnut	good	medium	stains beautifully, easy to carve

When choosing solid wood furniture for your home, you can expect to pay more, but you are getting a solid and durable piece of furniture that, with appropriate care, will last for decades or generations. I have a dining room table that belonged to one of my great-great (and more) ancestors that was built in the early 1800s. It's in fine shape and glorifies my dining room every day!

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