Choosing the right wood.
Wood has an effect. Through its properties, ingredients, nature, colour and texture, wood has an influence on our well-being, on the atmosphere in a room, on our health and mental state. More and more people want furniture and furnishings made of real wood. Wood is always unique. No two copies are really the same. Here is a small guide to help you make the right choice.

English oak

Durable, strong, unconventional, heavy, hard. Large parts of the oak trunk are unsuitable for furniture production: the sapwood is too soft and much of the core has to be removed. Depending on the application, the waste from oak is up to 400%. Oak usually gives a homogeneous impression in terms of colour, the surface is hard and almost indestructible. Oak can cope well with signs of wear and tear and often only comes to life as a result. Oak is a present, dominant wood in the living atmosphere and furnishing culture. In moderation, it can convey calm and strength, but it can also be oppressive, weigh down and overshadow its surroundings. So: don’t furnish everything with oak, even if this wood is currently over-represented and you get the impression that everything has to be made of oak.

Ash

Very high surface hardness, with light-coloured sapwood and olive-coloured heartwood grain, durable, smooth in movement and dimensionally stable, has little tendency to warp and can therefore also be used in large dimensions. (especially the plank width) The grain of ash is lively and harmonious at the same time. With skilful processing, true paintings can be created. Ash is always a friendly wood that tends towards neutrality in the living ensemble. All parts of the trunk can be used, so there is relatively little waste. Ash is the most sacred tree in Germanic mythology, where earth, heaven and the universe meet. It is cheaper than oak and many other hardwoods and has all the qualities for everlasting furniture.

Sycamore maple

Ivory white, beautiful, sometimes with very lively, almost overwhelming scores. There are holographic levels in the surface, offering a glimpse into the depths. Sycamore is hard, heavy, but visually very light. Antiseptic, very dense, small cells, narrow-growing, very suitable for kitchen tops, dining tables, restaurants, floors, light-coloured, light furniture. The best quality comes from mountain regions in the Alps. Sycamore maple is priced in the upper middle class. Maple furniture is always art, an expression of the living, the unique. You never throw away a piece of maple furniture, it accompanies you throughout your life

Birch

Birch wood is softer and lighter than other hardwoods. It is playful, light-coloured and creamy. It has a revitalising effect, makes you feel happy and light. The overall furnishing, the atmospheric impression of the room is not weighed down and oppressed, but complemented with harmony and lightness. The finished surface is often reminiscent of a silk scarf laid in waves. Beautiful, with a great insight into the depths, sometimes it looks like moving water, translucent and holographic. Birch wood is a wonderful furniture wood. When used as a worktop, you have to be able to live with the lower hardness of the surface. Birch wood is one of the slightly cheaper woods, but has unique advantages, especially visually.

Cherry wood

Anyone who needs cheerfulness and lightness should consider a family table made of cherry. In Japan, it is at the centre of cultural perception. It is considered pure, simple and at the same time magnificent. The cherry blossom season is an important traditional event in Japan, which is covered by the media.
Cherry wood is hard and heavy. Its colours range from gold to copper and blend into all shades of these tones within a single tree. Cherry wood can be used for all furniture and is best suited to very light, bright, white rooms.

Elm

Hard and durable, consistently honey and golden in colour, sometimes lighter, sometimes darker and soft in appearance. Its grain is often reminiscent of tropical wood, precisely because of its unique grain, which no other domestic wood has. Elm wood is hard and an excellent furniture wood. It conveys calm, peace and serenity. In terms of price, elm wood is in the upper middle class. Elm wood tends to crack, so this precious wood can only be obtained from responsible sawmills and dealers and must be processed very carefully. In the past, elm trees were favoured for planting in village avenues as a fire defence and their leaves were used as fodder for livestock in winter. Elms can be recognised by their asymmetrical leaf shapes. Similar to beech, but asymmetrical. The populations of field elm trees are severely threatened by the elm splint beetle, whose larvae slowly cause the trees to die of thirst. If you want to do something good, plant elm trees. These are resistant to this pest

European Walnut

Hard, dark chocolate, with a light-coloured contrasting splint. Very homogeneous, elegant, yet lively. Walnut wood can be used to create very elegant individual pieces that provide contrast and calm focal points in light-coloured rooms. In the past, every garden owner was obliged to plant a walnut tree. There were two reasons for this: Firstly, a reasonably mature tree provided so many calories in the form of nuts that a family of several people could cover their winter energy requirements. The tree was therefore a provision for survival in bad times. On the other hand, rifle butts were made from the hard, precious wood. Well, that was certainly not so great and not in the spirit of this noble, useful and beautiful tree.
European walnut is one of the most expensive woods. Of course, the stocks in Germany are very limited. Only abroad, for example in France or the Balkans, are they somewhat more common. I have had the good fortune to get hold of felled old garden trees a few times. I had them cut up and made beautiful furniture from them.
As an alternative, American walnut is available in the shops at a slightly lower price. This has very similar properties, but is darker and a little more boring. (Darker because it is sold steamed).

Serviceberry

An almost forgotten furniture wood. Unfortunately, it is hardly ever planted in forests, even though it traditionally thrives here. The wild service tree would be particularly valuable as a climatic tree because it copes well with drought and survives long summers. The wild service tree is most widespread in the Mediterranean region and southern Europe, but it can also be found in Denmark.
The wood of the wild service tree is unique! Its hardness is hard to beat, the colour ranges from dusky pink to reddish brown, it has a very noble appearance, very fine pores and is velvety to the touch. It darkens slightly reddish with age, but retains its harmonious colour. The grain is restrained and the wood shows great homogeneity between the heartwood and sapwood. All types of furniture and instruments can be made from wild service tree wood, but slow, careful drying and slow processing are important, otherwise the wood will crack and warp.
Service tree is available in selected shops, but is an expensive wood.
A piece of furniture made from service tree is a piece of furniture that will last forever.

Pine

Pine has a reputation for being cheap. This has happened because inferior pine has been processed into cheap furniture by Ikea and others for many years. Due to the varnished knottiness and industrial processing, there is not much left of the proud, bending queen of sandy floors.
But: good pine wood from sandy soils grows slowly and has the finest, closely spaced annual rings. Such wood, with few or no knots, is a beautiful, light wood for fine, slender furniture. They radiate warmth and calm and are in no way reminiscent of their poor cousins in the furniture store. The surface can be finished with a white oil or treated with a silky wax. Pine is quite inexpensive and is almost always available locally.

Spruce

The same applies to spruce and fir as to pine. However, spruce and fir are even lighter in colour, generally less resinous and even more homogeneous in grain. A friendly wood, easy to work with, long-fibred, tough and flexible.
Swiss stone pine – What a wood! The Swiss stone pine grows slowly on rocky ground in the Alps. It takes many decades to grow into a tree, the conditions are too unfavourable, the winters too hard and long, the soil too poor. But in all these years of endurance, the Swiss stone pine accumulates a high concentration of essential oils in its cells. And this is precisely what makes it so valuable and unique. Studies have shown that people sleep better, deeper and with a slower heartbeat when their bedroom furniture is made of Swiss stone pine. Of course, this requires a little more than a bedside cabinet, but the effect is clear and scientifically proven: Swiss stone pine keeps you healthy. Visually, Swiss stone pine is reminiscent of pine wood. Light-coloured honey and deep brown, not too many knots. Swiss stone pine wood is not treated so that the wood’s ability to breathe is not restricted. All furniture can be made from Swiss stone pine, but due to its slow growth and limited stocks, this wood should be reserved for the bedroom.

This overview is incomplete and some wood is missing. I will add to the information step by step. In our workshop, we process all of the above-mentioned types of wood as well as the wide variety of non-European woods. It is important to us to be careful and attentive in the transformation from tree to object. A master craftsman said to me a few years ago that we are successful when we express the life of the tree in the results of our work, all summers, all winters. At the time, I didn’t know exactly what this meant in reality. Today I know and see the glow in the wood after the work is done.

By the way: working slowly doesn’t mean you need more time. Slowness is faster than haste and it honours the wood as a material and shows the necessary respect.