When purchasing furniture for any room in the house, the first consideration must be: what kind of wood is most suitable for this room? As soon as this question is answered, the actual buying of the furniture is easy.
Deciding on the type of wood, however, can be far more difficult than it seems. Some people will favour oak or maple at great cost, while others will opt for the cheaper version such as pine or ash.
In order to make such an important decision, you should know what the differences between the woods are and why some woods are better than others. Since pine is one of the most popular woods around for furniture, the comparisons will be between pine and the other wood.
Pine is considered a soft wood. This means that it is an evergreen that has needles for foliage. All trees with similar characteristics will be described as soft wood. Hard wood, on the other hand, comes from trees with solid leaves that they lose seasonally. Examples of hard wood would be oak and maple. One of the other benefits of soft wood – specifically pine – is that it is cultivated worldwide, it is easy to grow and very easy to work with.
One of the main reasons for choosing pine is that the wood is so much cheaper than other wood. Hard wood furniture is considered luxurious furniture and is therefore very costly. Hard woods like Oak and Maple are also not so easy to cultivate and are therefore not a renewable resource.
Another reason for making pine furniture is that the wood is easy to work with. It lends itself favourably to carving and shaping and it also is very easy to stain, paint or varnish. The pine wood also has natural knots and grain that gives the wood a unique character and makes furniture look homey hand comfortable. Pine furniture is easy to refinish, so if your tasted changes, it is easy to sand it down and repaint or re-stain the piece of furniture.
Pine’s natural colour blends well with other wood types in the room and therefore also helps to make the room look cosy without looking overcrowded. The natural pale yellow also prevents large chairs and armoires from looking stuffy and forbidding.
Once you’ve decided on pine furniture, you can decide whether you want the furniture unfinished, or ready for use. The fun part of pine furniture is that it can be completely customized for your taste by being suitable for stencilling, painting, staining and refinishing.
Whatever piece of pine furnishing you purchase, be assured that you’ve received a versatile, long-lasting investment.