The Ultimate Guide to Identifying Wood Types in Furniture

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Hello everyone! If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been, I hope you’ll understand when you see how long and informative this post is!

I’ve been planning on writing this post, pretty much, since I started this blog. It has been one of the things I’ve always needed help with. I’ve spent hours researching this topic for each particular piece.

Knowing the answer to this question matters a great deal in restoration work. It will affect your strategy for sanding, pre-treating, and staining; basically, everything depends on knowing:

What type of wood is this??

You don’t want to start a refinish job in which you plan to expose the natural wood, without knowing the wood type.

Of course, there are SO MANY types of wood, it’s incredible. Even the experts sometimes can’t quite narrow down the exact species of wood you may be dealing with.

There are also multiple “subgenus” and “species” of each “genus” of wood. (i.e. Sub Genus: White Birch, Red Oak; Species: Acer pseudoplatanus)

You probably don’t need to know all of these crazy names for simple refinish work

To identify the exact species of the wood, you would need to know exactly where the wood came from in most cases. This is normally not possible, if (like me) you’re looking at a random piece of furniture you just snagged off the side of the road.

So for now, we will just be working on identifying the Genus (Birch, Oak, etc.) and not the exact Species of Wood. Also, we will stick to common wood types used in furniture making through the decades.

My list was filled with about 25 wood types at first. Then I decided I’d narrowed it down to the “most common” before my (and your) head exploded. I may add to the list periodically if I happen to find a furniture piece made of something not on it. (EDIT: Instead, I made an eBook with 39 wood types included for you to compare your furniture piece to. Check it out at the bottom of this post)

Identifying Wood Types In Furniture – The Most Common Wood Types

Hardwoods:

• Oak
• Maple
• Mahogany
• Cherry
• Walnut
• Poplar
• Rubberwood

Softwoods:

• Pine
• Spruce
• Redwood
• Hemlock
• Cedar

I will give you a short “Layman’s Terms” description of each type, and a distinguishing feature of each to help you identify it. (Of course, some wood types don’t quite have a distinguishing feature, but I’ll help you with that when we get to it.)

Before we begin, there are a few terms you should know that I couldn’t quite fit into the “Layman’s” category.

Beginner Terms to Know

Heartwood & Sapwood

Every tree has each of these 2 parts. They are the inner and outer areas of the tree.

The Heartwood is the dead, inner section of the tree. Its coloring is usually darker than sapwood.

The Heartwood is also the older section of the tree, which dies as new sections grow around it. It doesn’t decay as long as the new growing sapwood surrounds it. It becomes stronger over time as the dead fibers get bound together.

Because of that strength, the Heartwood is the section of the tree best for woodwork. It is also less susceptible to fungus and contains less moisture, therefore it doesn’t shrink when dried.

The Sapwood is the outermost portion and is usually lighter, “new” wood.

The Sapwood acts as a pipeline for water to travel up the tree to the leaves.

Growth Rings

All trees have annual growth rings. These are the cells formed each year that the tree grows. It is a cycle. The tree begins its new cycle of growth in the Spring and quickly forms a bunch of cells with thin, light-colored walls (earlywood). Thus the lighter section of the growth ring.

Then toward the end of Summer, growth slows down, and the cells are formed more slowly, smaller, and with thicker walls (latewood).

Thus making the dark sections of the growth ring.  All this to prepare for Winter, in which the cells lay completely dormant. The following Spring, the cycle begins again.

Growth rings won’t always show up on furniture wood as complete circle rings you’d see inside a tree trunk.

Depending on how that trunk is split into slabs, you will see many different patterns on the piece of wood.

The image below gives examples of the end-grain of wood pieces cut Quarter Sawn, Rift Sawn, or Flat Sawn.

But the face of the board is more than likely what you’ll be rating the wood grain and patterns against.

Live Sawn is cut straight through the log without changing the orientation of the log at all. The entire log is used this way, straight through and through, and the most grain pattern shows as well.

You can see how the grain patterns change based on the cut, so be sure to match up the growth rings when trying to identify your piece.

You may think it doesn’t have much grain, but it may only be because of the way the log was cut.

Wood Grain

Wood Grain is the direction, texture, or pattern made from multiple fibers of the wood.

The word “grain” happens to be used in a whole bunch of different ways in woodworking, I’ve learned. It is a very versatile word!

You’ll hear descriptions of the grain “direction” or “pattern” i.e. straight-grained, wavy-grained, interlocked grain, diagonal-grained, spiral-grained.

You’ll also hear descriptions of the grain “texture” i.e. fine-grained, coarse-grained, medium-grained.

This basically means how large or small, the pores of the wood are. Large pores spaced very far from each other make for a coarse-texture or grain. Small, tight pores make for a fine texture or grain.

Burls

A Burl is a part of the tree that grew, almost deformed, due to an injury or stress of some kind. It is used in furniture making quite frequently because when cut, burls usually have amazing grain patterns – unlike any other.

Burls are tough to identify with their wavy irregular wood grain.

If your piece has wavy or wild grain patterns, you may be dealing with burl wood and not just a certain wood type. Burlwood is rare, and quite expensive as well. So most of the time, if you see burlwood in furniture, it’s actually a thin wood veneer on top of a different kind of solid wood.

End Grain

To understand end grain, enjoy a sneak peek of a couple of pages from my newest eBook/Workbook, “Grain. Investigating Your Furniture’s Wood Identity.”

Order Now!

The end grain view is one of the most important views when trying to identify your wood furniture piece. Non-porous woods are softwoods. Ring, semi-ring, and diffuse-porous woods are all hardwoods.

If you can’t sand your piece, look inside of drawers cabinets, trim boards, or even the bottom of legs for an untreated end grain view. It will really help you out with identification.

If you plan to email me photos for assistance with identifying a piece, be sure to send a good photo of the end grain if possible!

Now that we’ve covered those terms we should be all set to dive into identifying wood types in furniture

Continue on to Page 2 of Identifying Wood Types in Furniture: Common Softwoods Used in Furniture

Or skip to page 3: Common Hardwoods Used in Furniture

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