What are the best woods for making furniture?
The Wood Guide · Choosing and comparing
Buying guideWood for furniture
A tabletop, a bookcase and a chair each ask something different of wood. Together, five properties determine which species fits where.
- Hardness · stability · workability
- Appearance and price
- A different answer for each piece
Wood for furniture
A tabletop, a bookcase and a chair each ask something different of wood. Together, five properties determine which species fits where.
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The choice in brief
There is no best furniture wood. There is a best wood for this piece, in this house, on this budget.
Five properties determine the choice. Hardness: how well the surface resists dents and scratches. Stability: how well it keeps its shape as the humidity changes. Workability: how pleasant it is to saw, plane and screw. Appearance: colour, grain and how it ages. And price, which can easily vary by a factor of ten between species.
These properties rarely go together. Beech is hard but moves a lot; paulownia is stable but soft; walnut is beautiful but expensive. So choosing is mainly about deciding which property matters most for this piece.
A dining table needs hardness — a plate sits on it every day. A bookcase needs stiffness, or the shelves sag. A chair needs toughness, because the joints are constantly being wrenched. Choose a wood species first and a piece of furniture second, and you almost always choose wrong.
- Dining table
- hardness and stability — oak, ash, beech
- Bookcase
- stiffness — oak, plywood, solid pine
- Chair
- toughness — ash, beech
- Cabinet fronts
- flatness — solid oak or lacquered MDF
- Carving
- softness — lime, magnolia
- Price difference
- up to a factor of ten between species
To be honest: solid wood moves, always. A tabletop a metre wide can differ by several millimetres between a humid summer and a heated winter. That is not a defect but the nature of the material — and it is why a top must be fixed with slotted holes or tabletop fasteners, never screwed down rigidly.
The common furniture woods
| Species | Hardness | Stability | Strong in | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oak | High | Good | Timeless, hard, ages beautifully | Mid-high |
| Beech | High | Moderate | Value for money, steam-bendable | Mid |
| Ash | High | Good | Springiness — chairs and curved parts | Mid |
| Walnut | Medium | Good | Colour and figure | High |
| Pine | Low | Moderate | Affordable, rustic character | Entry level |
| Mahogany | Medium | Very good | Workability and fine grain | Mid-high |
| Mango | Medium | Good | Character and circular origin | Entry-mid |
| Lime | Very low | Good | Carving and turning | Mid |
Beech is hard, even, affordable and can be bent into tight curves under steam. That it doesn't cope well with moisture doesn't matter indoors. For a chair — hard, tough, bendable, cheap — there is little better.
Which wood for which piece
Dining table
Hardness comes first. Oak is the safest choice; ash and beech also work, although beech moves more. Allow at least 3 centimetres of top for a length of one and a half metres.
Bookcase
Here stiffness counts, not hardness. Solid oak or thick plywood; for shelves longer than eighty centimetres, a stiffening batten at the back.
Chair
Ash or beech. The joints are constantly being wrenched, and those two are tough enough to take it without splitting.
Cabinet with flat fronts
Solid oak if you want grain and can live with movement; lacquered MDF if the gaps must always stay even.
The most common mistake in DIY: screwing a solid top rigidly onto a frame. Within a year it cracks. Use slotted holes or tabletop fasteners so the top can shrink and swell across its width. See how wood moves.
The finish decides half of it
Oil
Soaks into the wood, keeps the grain tangible and can be touched up locally. The choice for anyone who wants to keep feeling the wood.
Hardwax oil
Combines oil with a protective wax layer; slightly more resistance to stains, still easy to touch up.
Lacquer
Lays a closed film over the wood. The most resistant to stains, but when damaged the whole surface has to be redone.
Stain
Colours without protecting; it always needs a coat of oil or lacquer on top. See staining wood.
Frequently asked questions about wood for furniture
What is the best wood for furniture?
How thick should a tabletop be?
For a dining table of one and a half metres, at least 3 centimetres of solid wood. Longer means thicker, or a frame with a centre support.
Why is my home-made tabletop cracking?
Almost always because it has been screwed down rigidly. Solid wood must be able to move across its width — use slotted holes or tabletop fasteners.
Can I use cheap pine?
Certainly, for rustic furniture and cupboards. But expect dents: pine is soft, and a tabletop gets its first scars within a year.
Furniture wood in perspective
Start with the piece of furniture and the property that matters most there — the wood species follows by itself.
Have a question about your project? Just ask — we're happy to help.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons: Sample case with wood species from light to dark side by side — Tim Sheerman-Chase, CC BY 4.0