Design Guide Online Editorial

Most will agree that the use of wood products in a design scheme is a good thing, no matter how our style preferences and our building trends are affected by modern times. Whether our taste in furniture or architecture leans toward contemporary or traditional, we will keep a special place in our plans for the look of natural wood. Many homeowners enjoy a delightful blend of stained cabinets, exposed beams, wood furniture, and floors inside their homes. Here is a professional look, through the perspective of Design Guide Expert John Lanford of Architectural Finishing, at the components of wood finishing, which may help you with the understanding and lingo of this varying subject.

Types of wood:

Your builder, architect and designer will all want to weigh in on what species of wood are right for you. The builder will know which woods, such as oak, cedar, fir will be appropriate for construction purposes in your home. He/she will surely be influenced by engineering factors, as in load bearing,properties and cost. The architect will add style preferences into the decision, and that style may be served by the textural look of rough-sawn cedar, or the smooth consistency of fir. The designer may suggest other details such as color, sheen or glaze effects, which further enhance the presentation. These details can be best captured, in many cases, by particular types of wood, including walnut, cherry, oak, mahogany, and so forth. The painter will offer a variety of materials and techniques to evoke a particular wood's special grain figure or other characteristic. In your selection of the different applications mentioned above, (cabinets, beams, furniture, and floors) there will surely be a subset of finishes offered. Some of those finishes available may be in a fairly narrow range. Your choice of dining tables, for example, may only be offered in one type of wood and in three colors.

Use of your wood product:

(Two examples of mordant stains: i.e. color by chemistry, not dyes or pigments)

Even if you find a perfect match of wood finishes for your wood floors and your truss beams, you know that the finishes themselves will be quite different. Generally speaking, those beams may be finished with a one- or two-coat stain system without much need for protective finishes, but the modern floor finish may have a UV-cured coating which can be fairly maintenance free for decades.

Similarly, the custom cabinets in your home may be factory finished, or built in a local mill-worker's shop and finished on-site. Either way there will be a limited range of finishes, which will be employed by the finisher. Your painter, unless he is a wood finisher by trade, will often rely on cellulose lacquer for fast dry, ease of sanding, and a predictable product. The wood-finishing professional can offer acrylic lacquers and other finishes, which may seem exotic to the painter's capabilities.

For most of us barring a lifetime of experience, these and many other factors will escape the level of expertise which the professional wood finishers may acquire; nonetheless, "knowledge is power", and it can't hurt to have a splash of these concepts in your shopping cart when you make your decisions. 

Article and photos courtesy of John Lanford

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Related terms: Cabinetry, Furniture, Kitchens, Remodeler, Specialized Service, Wood Flooring & Floor Stain

by: John Lanford