Know your wood before
you choose your piece.
Every piece we build is 100% solid hardwood — no veneers, no plywood. Choose from four Ohio-native species, each with its own grain, color, and way of aging.
A quick look at all four species.
American Cherry
Starts soft pink-gold, deepens into a rich reddish-brown over years. The most dramatic age transformation of any domestic hardwood.
How Cherry Ages →
Black Walnut
Chocolate-brown heartwood with flowing, organic grain — waves, swirls, and figure that read almost like water. The only dark-toned hardwood native to Ohio, and our most-requested species.
White Oak
Warm beige to golden-brown with cathedral grain and signature ray fleck. Exceptionally hard — the traditional heirloom choice.
Hard Maple
Pale, fine, and creamy with occasional birdseye figure. The hardest domestic hardwood — a clean, modern canvas that warms slightly with age.
Cherry is the one that surprises people.
When a cherry piece first arrives, it's often lighter and pinker than customers expect. That's not a mistake — that's cherry being cherry. Freshly milled cherry lumber starts with a soft pink or golden-pink hue, not the deep red-brown you see in old furniture.
Over the first six months, light exposure triggers a chemical change in the wood. The pink warms. The gold deepens. By the end of the first year, your piece is noticeably richer than the day it arrived. By year five, it's the classic cherry color you pictured.
Other woods age too — maple warms slightly, walnut can lighten a touch at the surface — but none transform like cherry. This is why cherry has been prized for generations, and why staining it dark from day one defeats the point.
Four stages of the same tree.
Fresh
Day One
Warming
~6 Months
Matured
~2 Years
Deep Patina
5+ YearsActual color may vary with lighting, grain, and direct-sun exposure. The progression, though — that's inevitable.
Most "cherry" furniture isn't.
Big-box manufacturers often take low-grade softwood or rubberwood, drench it in a dark maroon stain, and label it "cherry finish." It looks like cherry on day one and dies looking the same on year ten.
Real cherry is a living material. It moves with light. It deepens with time. That's the whole point — and it's what you can't fake with a spray booth.
Photos can't show you the grain.
Visit our Clintonville showroom to hold each species, feel the finish, and see how our cherry pieces look after a few years of sunlight.
4555 N. High St, Columbus · Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 6pm
