Antique furniture terminology is a comprehensive guide that covers various types of wood, including panel, bentwood, and Biedermeier. Panels are flat, rectangular pieces of wood used in construction and furniture making, while saws are used to cut them. Bentwood is a type of wood that has been heated and shaped to become curved. Biedermeier furniture, influenced by Napoleonic styles, was produced between 1815 and 1848 in Central Europe.
There are three main types of wood used in furniture: solid wood, particleboard or MDF, and plywood. Wooden furniture, bamboo furniture, wicker or rattan furniture, metal furniture, and plastic furniture, also known as acrylic, are classified by materials. Oak is a classic choice for long-lasting and beautiful furniture, along with brown maple, while walnut and cherry are prized for exquisite, high-end furniture.
There are nine types of wooden furniture widely used today, categorized by materials like wood, bamboo, wicker or rattan, metal, and plastic. Case goods, such as dressers, bookcases, hutches, chests, and desks, are storage pieces typically made of wood. Casters are small wheels designed to allow furniture to move.
Marlo provides a glossary of European furniture terms, including applique, back splats, volutes, and wingbacks, to help users make an informed decision when shopping for furniture. Particleboard furniture, designed to look like natural wood, is often covered in a wood veneer. Furniture refers to objects intended to support various human activities such as seating, eating, and storage.
In summary, antique furniture terminology is a valuable resource for those interested in learning about different types of wood and their uses.
📹 Which Wood Type Should I Choose for my Furniture? (Wood Types Compared)
Which wood type is best for my solid wood furniture? That’s the question we help you answer in this first video of our DutchCrafters …
What is decorative woodwork called?
Decorative molding refers to trim around doors, windows, ceilings, baseboards, and paneling like shiplap and wainscoting. It can be made from softwoods, hardwoods, composite materials, polyurethane, stone, and polystyrene with fiberglass. Today’s composites are easier to cut and paint than real wood. Crown molding, also known as cornice molding, is an overhead crowning touch that flares out in the space where walls and ceiling meet. It can be elaborate with decorative cutouts or simple and linear.
What are the 5 names of furniture?
The following article presents a comprehensive overview of furniture styles, encompassing a diverse range of furniture items, including beds, cabinets, chairs, and seating. Should any discrepancies be identified, it is recommended that the relevant style manual or other sources be consulted. Should you identify any corrections, updates, or omissions, we kindly request that you inform us. The editors will then evaluate the submission and determine whether it requires revision.
What is the wood used in furniture called?
The three main types of wood used in furniture are solid wood, particleboard or MDF, and plywood. High-quality solid wood, derived from organic sources, can be hardwood or softwood. Hardwoods are stronger, have higher density, and are more expensive than softwoods. Examples of solid wood include oak, cherry, maple, walnut, birch, and ash. The quality of these woods affects the furniture’s long-term durability and price.
What is furniture carpentry called?
Woodworking is a skill that involves creating items from wood, including cabinetry, furniture, carving, joinery, carpentry, and woodturning. It was one of the first materials used by early humans, alongside stone, clay, and animal parts. Microwear analysis of Mousterian stone tools used by Neanderthals reveals that many were used to work wood. The development of civilization was closely tied to the development of increasingly greater degrees of skill in working these materials. Artists can use woodworking to create delicate sculptures.
What is the meaning of wood furnishings?
Wood furniture refers to room furnishings such as cabinets, tables, chairs, beds, and sofas. Street furniture includes public facilities and structures not primarily for advertising, such as seating benches, planters, bins, bus shelters, sidewalk clocks, drinking fountains, Telkom boxes, traffic signal controllers, electricity boxes, post boxes, and telephone booths. Service equipment includes equipment, software, systems, cabling, and facilities provided by Verizon to facilitate service provision at a customer site.
Ownership of Service Equipment does not pass to the customer, and does not include Verizon Facilities. Appliances include electrical, mechanical, and electronic appliances like refrigerators, televisions, DVD players, videocassette recorders, washing machines, microwave ovens, music systems, personal computers, laptops, and air conditioners for domestic use in the insured’s home.
What are the decorative pieces of wood called?
This text is an examination of the use of onlays, applique, scrollwork, and swags in various design elements.
What are group terms for furniture?
In the context of interior design, a suite is defined as a collection of furniture pieces, such as a dining room suite, a living room set, or a grouping of chairs, that are used collectively for a specific purpose.
What are old pieces of furniture called?
The term “antique” is used to describe furniture that is over 100 years old. An applique is a decorative light affixed to a wall, while an apron is a decorative element connecting a chair’s surface to its legs.
What is wooden embellishments?
The assortment of wooden embellishments provides a multifaceted solution for the creation of distinctive papercraft designs. It encompasses both bespoke toppers and ready-to-use decorative wooden designs derived from wooden craft blanks.
What is a synonym for furnishings?
The Cathedral’s furnishings, including accessories, fittings, fixtures, and provisions, appear to be of an outdated style and excessive in their ornamentation. However, Mendoza discovered that all pieces were in compliance with the relevant legislation. Designers such as Jones transformed Pop Art images into stylized, sexy sculptural furnishings, despite the outward appearance of outdated furnishings.
What items are considered furnishings?
The term “furnishings” is used to describe the various items that are included in the interior design of a room or house. These items can be broadly classified into three main categories: furniture, curtains, and carpets. Additionally, decorations such as pictures can also be considered furnishings.
📹 Top 10 Wood Species For fine Woodworking
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White Pine is rarer now, due to a fungus which decimated huge stands of these interesting trees. The fungus was apparently brought in from England on a goose berry plants. I use to work for a forest company. We would only cut White Pine for about one week a year. Typically saw ends in the planer mill would usually just go to the chipper but when we cut White Pine people would line up with their pickups and would fill them with for what was waste to us. Of course we charged them for it. The forestry research has come up with a White Pine variant that is resistant to this fungus.
I found a tee tree on a logging job in 1976 that was nearly 36″ in the stump. I managed to get a short piece home and have it sawn. I made a few projects with it and it was amazing to work with. Very hard! And got harder as it aged. You are the only person I’ve heard mention this wood! Thank you! Also, black Cherry is my very favorite. It speaks to me!
I’m not surprised that you picked the woods you did, but you didn’t list my favorite wood: butternut. It has some lovely chatoyence, though more subtle than some of the flashier woods, and it is about like pine in weight. Black cherry’s my favorite wood to work because of the combo of smell, sap pockets, and chatoyence. The other favorite I have is teak, which is a bear to work (like actual sand size granules in there sometimes, and I’ve seen it take a chunk out of a freshly sharpened plane blade), but is just so great. But yeah, I don’t much like working ash or oak either (notable by their omission from your list).
Enjoyed this one Mate. Being in Australia all of those timbers are expensive lol. Would love to get some birdseye maple one day just for fun. My favourites would be, in no order of preference, Tulip Oak, Northern Silky Oak, QLD red cedar, PNG Rosewood, Tassie Oak, River Red Gum (makes the most beautiful rocking chairs), Western Australian Jarrah, Hoop pine (you wood like this Rob as the texture and colour are just spot on), Tassie Blackwood, Southern Silky Oak. For a fragrant timber you can’t go past the good old camphour laurel albeit it is classified as a pest tree in Australia it is good for lining boxes to ward off silver fish and the like 🙂
A few years ago we had an old family home torn down, part of which was the original log cabin built in the 1880’s but covered over with shingles. I was given a couple of sections of log from it (I think it was northern white pine) and sawed them up into boards. There was a fair amount of cracking but I was able to get some very nice if relatively small pieces of nice clear wood out of them and made a few small mantle clocks from it. I found a couple of pockets of resin in them that still oozed when they were cut, well over 100 years since the trees were felled.
From a British perspective, I would have boxwood, olivewood and laburnum in my top ten. Agree about cocobolo, Brazilian tulipwood, verawood and yew (although get hold of some English yew if you can, it has a much brighter orange than the Pacific piece you showed, and if you’re lucky you can get reds and even purples in there too!).
It’s interesting to hear from such an experinced woodworker that after all the exotics and tropicals, the top three are walnut, maple, and pine. They’re classics for a reason I suppose! My personal list would have to have cherry in the top 5 as well – I just love the look. Might have to try and get some tulipwood eventually – haven’t seen it before and it’s just georgous.
Out here in the PNW, Douglas Fir aka Doug Fir, is really the closest we get to white pine. I agree that the softwoods take the nicks and dings more in stride. Other cool woods here are myrtle wood, broad leaf maple, and we’re fortunate to have walnut groves around and the trees are harvested when they die (fungus gets them at about 100 years). But the most unique wood I’ve gotten was old growth reclamation area juniper. It’s cut down to help restore the natural grasslands in eastern Oregon. The juniper is very water hungry and disrupts the ecosystem. It’s fantastic for outdoor use because it has a high tannin content and resists rot better than almost any commercially available cedar.
I had a feeling pine and birdseye maple would your top two! But I agree, pine is severely underrated regarding its beauty, at least by us woodworkers. I think many of us (myself included) get excited to tell people we used some fancy exotic hard wood with classy adjectives in the name (figured, fiddleback, quilted, etc.) You inspired me to do more pine builds now!
Being in Missouri, i am fortunate to get quite a bit of black walnut. I make some boards for projects (Alaskan mill) but it makes beautiful bowls. Recently acquired a large quantity of Ash (large tree next to my home died) and was given some Maple by a friend who had same problem. Pretty well set up for a good bit of time 🙂
Interesting. Thanks for making this article. I am not a wood worker, but I love shopping for wood that I use for knife handles because I’m a knife maker. I usually go for woods that are super hard and self polish when I sand them to 1000 grit and even finer. I use tung oil and furniture wax for finishing, and I’m thinking of using Minwax polyurethane for some of my handles. A friend of mine gave me some walnut because he is a sculptor, and walnut was too hard for him to carve. It is so, so, beautiful. I like Bocote, Goncalo Alves, Spalted Tamarind, Purpleheart, Wenge, Cumaru, African Paduk, and Ambrosia Maple. I have made some pretty handles out of black palm, but it is harder to work with.
I’m a guitar guy so familiar with exotic woods. Cocobolao is available with some incredible figuring that looks like spider webs or tortoise shell. I love maple for musical instruments, especially archtop guitars and mandolins. Of course Honduras mahogany, red spruce, and east Indian rosewood are the staples of instrument building. I’m surprised that white pine is his favorite wood. Most is loaded with knots.
Thank you for the article. I did lathe work for 35 years, making bobbin for Bobbin lace, the cheapest wood came as purple heart because Utility trailer used it for the floor of trailers so the scraps were free. I still have a 2×4 in the basement. I loved Tulip wood and Cocobol, but to turn it, a mask is a must. The most expensive I turned is Pink Ivory, and boy is it ever beautiful, from white to a deep pink and all in between. Holy land olive wood has a very beautiful grain and smells of olives. I wonder why. Thank you for sharing. If you are careful, Purpleheart burns to a deep purple. I had to prove that to a man because he said it just turns black. I said too much heat.
White pine is the white coopers friend. Too soft to be easy to work with. I had a piece of furniture come in for restoration. Had pea and bean style medallions on the top of chair back rails and a few other places I had to re carve. Honduras Mahagony is what this chair’s details were made out of. This stuff cut like soap with a knife or chisel had no real ropey voids like mahogany seems to normally have. Took stain evenly and would stand up to say thumbnail marks. Must be quite rare for I have seen it once and was so nice to work with had the best cross and end grain workability. The medallions were intricate and all end grain. Amazing stuff.
What a great vid,,, we need more of these, Rob, I’ve watched in envy for years of your skills, tools, workshop and your talent that has pulled all this together,,, but I’ve never witnessed before your undoubted passion for the medium you use- the wood itself! “Weekend workshop warriors” like me get few opportunities to apply ourselves to ‘real quality builds’, making a keepsake box for my daughter is as good as it gets for me – and then you learn if you’d better chosen your materials you’d have ended up with a piece of beauty rather than something that was ‘very nice’,,,, more of this stuff please!
“Claro walnut” is Northern California black walnut – _Juglans hindsii_. It is used as a root stock to graft English walnut on in California, and maybe farther north, because there s a native soil fungus that will kill English walnut. It used to be that many orchard had tall, 4-6 foot trunks of black walnut before the English walnut graft. There is also a native southern California walnut species that is essentially a shrub. The northern trees can be immense. the largest I have ever seen was removed by the Army Corps of Engineers because it was growing on the river side of the levee along the American River in Sacramento. The trunk was around five to seven feet in diameter. The wood can be much darker than the example you show with purplish highlights. It oxidizes to a dark brown. We have a side board in the family, made by my grandfather, that is of solid California black walnut.
I think pine is the best overall wood for furniture. It’s good to learn techniques and show off some skills, cheap where I live, ages well, and smells nice. I’ve made a few projects for humid rooms like a bathroom with pine that has lots of sap and it has stood up well. Something about having translucent pieces in a board just looks nice to me.
Black walnut is my favorite. Lucky enough to have some on my property and people around me know I am looking for it. Any time we have a huge storm come through I get calls that if I will clear the downed tree I can keep all the wood. Load up the chainsaw mill and away I go. I have so much stocked up now I had to build a specific drying building for all of it. Managed to get my cookies to dry without splitting!
When did you become longhaired? I’ hadn’t checked in with you in a bit – hope things are going well for you. Welcome to the club. If you’re wanting to level up your awesomeness, you could donate to Locks of Love if/when you get tired of it. I’ve donated 7 times (8 times? Lord, I’ve gotten old) & closing in on 20’. There’s defy worse things to be done with your time. Cheers!
The best wood for tool handles that I’ve found is osage orange it can be incredibly hard and it’s very tough. Colour ranges from yellow to bright orange to an orangish brown with a cream colored sap wood. It is also dense, rot resistant, and hard on tools because of its high silica content. I’m sorry soft pine is a no go in my shop maybe Hard Yellow Pine, sorry Rob.
I think the reason holly is so expensive is because it’s mostly found in the southeast, here in the northeast we’ve cut down only two. After seeing the price, when we did a job on another holly, I took the whole tree with the exception of a few leads that were dried out as well as the bottom. It was a larger holly tree with a max width of only about 12″. I don’t think they grow much wider. I’ve yet to mill the logs, I just brought them home recently, but I’m looking forward to making some lumber. I mostly just mill wild cherry, black walnut, and oak.
I had a person ask me to build them picnic tables from 2×10 select pine boards…. When I came back with the price he almost aged by 20 years… And that was after I spent a few days calling every big and small sawmill I could in order to source it. I am not a big lover of White pine… I find the pitch really effects my machinery but yeah It’s nice to work with and I have about 1000 board feet lying around in my shop right now.
Cocobolo out of Africa is traditionally used for clarinets. Yew is used primarily for making bows. I used to make teak and holly decks on boats. I don’t recall it being that expensive back then, but it was a lot of years ago. English walnut is grafted onto black walnut roots. I remember that near my house when I lived in California there was a very old walnut grove. They cut the trees and hauled them off but left the stumps. One day they pushed the stumps into a pile to burn them. I begged the guy to let me haul them off and offered to pay for the land clearing. He wasn’t interested and they burned them, hundreds of root burls. What stupidity.
Great article! I’m definitely going to have to nab some black cherry and holly sometime. For my part, I’ve found that my absolute favorite wood to work with is grenadillo. With a simple finish of shellac and laquor, it’s a beautiful, deep reddish brown, and I just love the way it smells when I’m working with it. Almost a hint of chocolate to it? I don’t know how else to describe it. Just marvelous stuff.
One of the most beautiful pieces of wood I’d ever seen though there are numerous gorgeous woods out there was a sheet if veneered Birds Eye that somehow had all the eyes colored this somewhat translucent red. And that was 54 years ago and I can still see it my mind. It still fascinates me to this day. My ex wife happened upon a Gorgeous Sleigh Bed made of a very close approximation only a more golden tone overall versus the light yellow. Of course, though mildly damaged, we bought it and I corrected the damage and made a serviceable bed with it.
I have a wood branch that is (under the bark) kind of a light brown, it has very light streaks that look grayish-black, and the center of the branch is so dark it’s almost like Ebony, it is darker than Mahogany. If I did have the bark it is long gone and I don’t know what this wood is. Any ideas? It came from Pennsylvania in the United States. Also the end wood is almost impenetrable by fingernail (at least mine). The wood has never been dyed, but it is several years dried. The branch is about as thick as a pinky finger, but there has been absolutely no cracking or splitting anywhere on it. It is also so strong that it cannot be bent. If I think of more details I will add them later. Thanx so much!
I live and work in Puerto Rico, I have access to some amazing hardwood suppliers. Example my preferred lumber yard is Tesoro de Madera in the mountains above Carolina Puerto Rico. But the problem I have is the names used here, and the names used in the states and names used all over the world for the same wood. For example, in one of your articles about 10 woods, you will not use, you mentioned one that makes you sick when sawing it, you called it Spanish something or other, well I use that wood and am sick for a week, we call it ‘Cedro de La Montania’ I use it here on the Island for exterior door and windows because it is very anti fungal, and anti termite. I hate working with it, but I get it for $ 3.65 board foot. and after a couple of years the wood is still in great shape. But interestingly we have structures in the San Juan area that have beams 4×8, 6×6 8×8 etc etc. over two hundred and even 350 years old made from a wood called Ausubo. Very hard, beautiful, when they remodeled some buildings in the old city back in the 80’s and 90’s they dumped this wood. My friend and I gathered many beams. Back in the early 2000’s we sliced many of these into smaller pieces. I sill have about 80 lbs of these sitting in my shop. But I have no idea what this wood is called in wood circles in the States (I once heard it called bullet wood, but I haven’t found examples of it used in the States under that name.) So called exotic woods here in the island are rather inexpensive. Many varieties of Mahogany sell for less than $ 10.
Very nice choices. I share several of your favorites. Cocobolo is perhaps my favorite, but unfortunately much of the Cocobolo that I find available today is nowhere near as good in color or figure as that which regularly found 30 to 40 years ago. Tulipwood (Brazilian) is another of my favorites, but I have found it to be quite scarce anymore. I also like Kingwood which is related and similar to the Brazilian Tulipwood though quite different in color. Holly is awesome and makes an awesome contrast when paired with almost any other wood. Shedua is quite nice too.
I mostly avoid the exotics for price reasons, though they can be useful for accents. I’ve similarly not done a lot of work with Walnut. I’m just in love with Cherry, though; machines well, smells great, nice (and understated) grain pattern, suitable for full-sized furniture pieces, medium density, beautiful color. And here in the northwest, it has been cheaper than Maple, recently.
Great article. I’m from UK and love english oak. Very old english yew turns quite dark over the years. I’ve used laburnum as well, nice colour with contrasting sap wood. The fruit woods, apple and especially pear are ones I use from time to time. I bought an old ebony mask at a garage sale which I’ve cut up for accent pieces… great with the holly. We need more articles like this..excellent.
Interesting that he only talks about workability and appearance. I am usually interested in the structural properties of the wood, whether is it durable, what’s its strength-to-weight ratio, is it springy or rigid. But then I mostly work on boats. I worked on one hull built in the 1890’s and the pitch pine planks were still fine but the white English oak frames had gone so brittle they had all cracked. An example from furniture-making might be that chair seats would be made from something like beach because it carves well and never splinters whereas the back might be yew because it is nice and springy and can be readily steam bent.
re birds eye maple. As a boy growing up in Vermont in the 60’s, there was a man in his 80’s who told of clearing land for a farm up on the mountainside and skidding Birds eye maple logs 3′ in diameter into a pile and burning them as the town water-powered sawmill couldn’t handle them. I thought my mow was going to cry LOL
Another interesting one, didn’t expect your #1 to be #1, but do agree, does age well and takes sharp tools and careful skill to work. Also wanted to say thanks for you initial comment that you could just have pieces of planed and oil/wax finished pieces of wood about your house for “decoration/display”, I have a few such pieces, the nicest of which is a 1.75″x1.75″x 6″ piece of Lignum Vitae, sap and heart wood, that’s just planed as smooth as I could get it and then Fed n Wax applied to it, absolutely gorgeous and weighs more than steel it seems 😀
I have heard so many different varieties of walnut called ‘Claro’…… As near as I can tell, it is the California walnut/juglens Hindisi, or some thing like that. Many will call any walnut with lots of color that as well. The grafting of Persian walnut, which many call ‘English’ walnut, onto the black walnut stumps was standard a long time ago. Don’t think they do that at all any more. That grafting will result in Persian walnut that has color. If you get a Persian walnut that is not grafted onto anything, it will be a rather bland ‘old white T shirt’ color. I know there is one variety that is called ‘Paradox’ walnut, which I believe is a cross between other walnuts. Too many to keep track of. I don’t turn walnut bowls any more. Makes me sneeze and itch…. Wenge, if you even look at it wrong you get very deep splinters. Anything in the Rosewood family, like cocobolo, it is when, not if you develop allergies. You lose immunity each time you handle it.
I may not get this exactly right but I read an explanation about birdseye years ago that said these were limbs that were unable to fully form, because of the tree’s growing conditions or some inherent weakness or disease, so the tree sort of goes into overdrive to try to create limbs. Somewhat like the way burls form. Always fun to find them in different species unexpectedly.
I grew up logging white pine and hated it fresh white pine sap is the stickiest stuff I hated felling it the hinge wood is brittle. After a day of cutting logs you look like you were covered in tar. I moved south and I miss that smell it is something to remember. I miss the way a sharp chainsaw pulls through it And
That Cocobolo wood, I think is what we call in Central America Conacaste or Guanacaste, is kind of poisonous gets all the way to your throat and makes you cough a lot, must use mask specially when sanding it. sawdust was used in the past to go fishing, just spread some on the river and fishes would come up. It will last forever, but the problem is that if it is milled in like 1 inch thick boards; it will twist like crazy.
Wow…I loved this article..as a Brazilian I know about our woods and know we have a lot o gourgeous wood.This at #6 we call here “Sebastião de Arruda” (around 0.9 g/cm³) and lot people in the world use the veneer to cover guitars (check on Google using the Brazilain name)…the smel is very nice…I made a chisel plane using this wood…but here in Brazil is very easy to find a pestle for smash garlic at mortar by this wood (less then two US$) probably leftovers from wood companies..I”ll send a picture of mine for your e-mail…Bálsamo (Myroxylon Balsamum) is a wood from same family and smels even more …woderful color and figure too… Next year I’ll be back to visit Canada and visit you in person at shop…an exotic piece of Brazilian wood to you make a special dovetail saw handle will be in my luggage Thanks one more time for your article
can’t this guy just put his plane down for a second and concentrate on his narrative… show us the wood species a little closer, etc? I mean virtually every one of his articles — at least in part– is him mindlessly/obsessively planing a piece of wood. Okay, so we know you’re a plane guru with sharp planes…you can put the plane down now…and show us a new trick….
Just a passing comment. I see that you use a Wood River plane. Some remember the history of how the Chinese manufacturer Quangsheng, copied Lie-Nielsen’s designs. People buy what they want. And the only thing I have to add is that when one buys a high quality tool, that if properly cared for, will outlast me, and be hopefully handed down to one’s children, or someone close. Being such the case, I’ve always preferred to buy American made products, to give an American working family a salary, that they can feed their family with, before I give it to a Chinese company that has basically copied the design of others. But that is just me personally.
I’m a little surprised you didn’t have an oak species on your list. I’ve enjoyed working with white and red oak for over 40 years and still love how it works with both hand and machine tools. But you also had some interesting woods that I’ve never tried. Guess I’ll be checking with the supplier about some of them. Thanks for the great information.
Living here in southwestern PA, I was in a local community park, and there was a plaque next to a cherry tree. They’re considered “weed trees.” I found that interesting. I wasn’t at all surprised Rob likes white pine and honestly I love it for the same reasons. Pieces with the big nasty knots so much, but if you get nice vertical grain boards, you can sometimes find a little figure, and it turns a beautiful color over time.