Solid wood
Furniture made entirely from cut and joined boards of a single species, with no layers, particleboard or veneer hidden inside. What you see is what holds the weight.
Ratgeber · Holz-Lexikon
The wood glossary
The words we use every day on the workshop floor, explained in plain language. Useful if you want to read a product description, or simply understand what makes solid wood different from everything else.
Veneer
A thin sheet of real wood glued onto a cheaper core material such as chipboard. Common in mass furniture; we don't use it. It looks like wood but can't be sanded or repaired the way solid wood can.
Wood grain
The pattern left by a tree's growth, visible as lines, swirls and figure in the cut surface. No two boards are alike, grain is the fingerprint of the tree.
Knot
The mark left where a branch grew from the trunk. A natural feature, not a flaw, each knot is proof the board came from a living tree and not from a factory mould.
Growth ring
One ring records one year of growth: wide in generous seasons, tight in lean ones. Counting rings tells you how many years, and how much patience, went into a plank.
Heartwood
The dense, darker wood at the centre of the trunk. It is the most stable and durable part of the tree, and the part we prefer for tabletops and cutting boards.
Sapwood
The paler, younger wood just under the bark, still carrying nutrients when the tree was alive. Softer than heartwood, so we use it sparingly and always visibly, never disguised.
Hard-wax oil
A finish of natural oils and waxes that soaks into the wood rather than sitting on top like varnish. It lets the surface breathe, resists water and grease, and is simple to refresh: sand, re-oil, done.
Wood movement
Solid wood keeps breathing long after it leaves the tree, expanding slightly in humid summers and contracting in dry winters. Good joinery plans for this movement instead of fighting it.
Mortise and tenon
One of the oldest joinery methods: a tongue (tenon) cut to fit exactly into a slot (mortise). Glued and often pegged, it is stronger than most metal fittings and needs no screws to hold for a century.
Hand-planed
Smoothed with a hand plane rather than only a sanding machine. It leaves a subtly uneven, tactile surface that catches the light differently to a perfectly flat, machine-sanded one.
Brushed finish
A surface where a wire brush has been drawn along the grain, opening the softer spring-wood fibres and leaving the harder summer-wood raised. The result is a texture you can feel with your eyes closed.
Keep exploring
See the wood behind the words
Every piece in our catalog is built from the solid wood, joinery and finishes described here, nothing hidden, nothing simulated.
Explore the full catalog