Selecting Timber for Furniture in Canada

Hardwoods and Softwoods in Canadian Furniture

The terms hardwood and softwood refer to botanical classification, not strictly to the physical hardness of the wood. Hardwoods come from deciduous trees that lose their leaves seasonally; softwoods come from coniferous species. In practice, most furniture hardwoods are denser and harder than most softwoods, though there are exceptions — balsa is a hardwood, and some conifers like yew are quite dense.

Canadian forests contain both categories in commercial quantities. Eastern Canada is dominated by sugar maple, yellow birch and black walnut in the hardwood category, and eastern white pine, black spruce and tamarack in softwoods. British Columbia produces western red cedar, Douglas-fir and yellow cypress, among others. Natural Resources Canada maintains a forest products database that includes regional species distribution and basic wood properties.

Sugar Maple

Sugar maple (Acer saccharum) is one of the most commonly used Canadian furniture hardwoods. It grows across Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime provinces, and is available through domestic sawmills in consistent quality. Its Janka hardness of 1,450 lbf makes it suitable for tabletops, workbench surfaces, floors, chairs and cutting boards — applications that require resistance to denting and wear.

Sugar maple has a fine, uniform texture and a straight or slightly wavy grain. It glues and finishes well. One consideration is that it is not particularly responsive to oil finishes; it tends to absorb unevenly, producing a blotchy surface. Film finishes — lacquer, shellac or waterborne finishes — produce more consistent results on maple.

Black Walnut

Black walnut (Juglans nigra) grows in southern Ontario, primarily in Carolinian forest zones around the Great Lakes. It produces rich brown heartwood with a straight grain and moderate density — easier to work than maple, with better response to oil and penetrating finishes. Its natural colour and figure make it the most visually distinctive Canadian furniture hardwood.

Walnut is used for tabletops, cabinet fronts, decorative panels and turned components. It is significantly more expensive than maple, partly because the trees grow more slowly and are less abundant in Canadian forests, and partly because the lumber market for walnut is driven by high demand from furniture and gunstock makers.

Squaring lumber is the starting point for accurate furniture construction. Photo: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

White Ash

White ash (Fraxinus americana) is valued for its combination of hardness, flexibility and straight grain. It has traditionally been used for tool handles — axes, shovels, hockey sticks — because it absorbs shock rather than splitting. In furniture, those same properties make it suitable for bentwood components: steam-bent chair backs, curved aprons and Windsor chair bows.

Ash has a pronounced open grain that responds well to stains and can be made to resemble oak at lower cost. It machines cleanly and takes hand tool work well. Note that ash populations in eastern Canada have been severely affected by the emerald ash borer since the mid-2000s, which has reduced availability and raised prices for this species in affected regions.

Yellow Birch

Yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis) is widely distributed across eastern Canada and is available as lumber in consistent grades. It is used primarily for veneer, cabinet interiors, drawer boxes and turned components. Its density is similar to maple but its grain is more pronounced, making it easier to shape without tear-out in hand planing.

Birch plywood — typically made from yellow or silver birch — is one of the most common sheet materials in Canadian cabinet shops, offering a stable core with consistent face veneer for painted or stained work.

Western Red Cedar

Western red cedar (Thuja plicata) is the dominant softwood used in Canadian outdoor furniture, garden structures and storage chests. Its natural oils make it resistant to moisture and decay, and it stays dimensionally stable in wet conditions better than most untreated hardwoods. Cedar does not require finishing for exterior use, though it will weather to grey without a UV-blocking oil or stain.

For furniture, cedar's softness — Janka hardness around 350 lbf — limits its use to applications where hardness is not required. It is aromatic, which makes it a traditional choice for blanket chests and closet lining where moth deterrence is valued.

Reading Lumber: Grain Orientation and Figure

How a log is sawn into boards determines the grain orientation and figure of each piece. Flatsawn lumber (also called plainsawn) shows the growth rings running roughly parallel to the wide face, producing a cathedral grain pattern and wider boards. Quartersawn lumber is cut so the rings run roughly perpendicular to the face, producing a straight, linear grain pattern and — in certain species like white oak — visible ray figure.

Quartersawn boards are more dimensionally stable across the width, which is significant for wide panels and tabletops. The Wood Database provides shrinkage values for both radial (quartersawn) and tangential (flatsawn) orientations, which are useful when calculating how a board will move in use.

Moisture Content and Drying

Wood must be dried to a moisture content appropriate for the end use before being worked into furniture. Interior furniture in a heated Canadian home typically reaches an equilibrium moisture content between 6% and 9% — higher in summer, lower in winter. Lumber sold as kiln-dried is typically dried to 6–8%, though this varies by the drying facility and how the stock has been stored since drying.

Purchasing lumber from a dealer with covered, climate-controlled storage reduces the risk of working with wood that has re-absorbed moisture. Checking moisture content with a pin-type or pinless meter before milling gives a baseline reading. Working lumber at the moisture content it will live at — rather than at significantly higher or lower levels — reduces the degree of movement the finished piece will undergo.

Where to Source Canadian Hardwood

Domestic hardwood dealers and sawmills are a more reliable source for quality Canadian species than general lumber yards, which tend to stock dimensional softwood construction lumber. Urban areas in Ontario and Quebec have a concentration of hardwood dealers; British Columbia has extensive sources for western species. Some sawmills sell direct to woodworkers at rough-sawn thickness, which allows the buyer to inspect the stock and select boards with specific grain patterns or figure.