Veneers are the great furniture cover-up

Without the use of veneers you need the highest quality solid pieces of wood, whereas if you want to cut costs you’d just use a cheap bit of wood with a veneer. This will cause a lack of strength and a far shorter lifespan of the product. Imagine a large piece of furniture, such as a dining table. These have large areas of wood that are highly visible at all times. A veneer could cover wood that isn’t strong enough to bear the loads required, and when exposed to heat could even start peeling! Not such a good look any more!

Can’t I save money by choosing veneers?

Don’t think that because the cost to manufacture a piece of veneered furniture is lower that you will necessarily pay less. Look carefully when shopping for wooden furniture. The phrase you are looking for is 100% solid hardwood. Accept nothing less.

Cross-Section of Solid Mango

At Oak Furniture Land we only ever sell 100% hardwood furniture. All of our Oak, Mango and Mahogany is especially selected for its superior grain and patterns, which ensures both strength and beauty. Also, the better quality the wood, the easier it is for a craftsman to work and the less wastage there is. There really are very few advantages to veneered furniture unless you’re a manufacturer who wants to cut corners!

Buy 100% solid hardwood furniture at Oak Furniture Land.

We stock hundreds of items of furniture, all of which are 100% solid hard wood. Not a strip of laminate is ever used on any of our furniture, so you can be sure that the quality is first class and the workmanship exceptional.

Veneer Over Poor Quality Wood

Veneer can be a confusing term. Here’s our guide to the pros and cons of veneered furniture.

In the first of this two-part blog post we will discover that veneers are often employed by online furniture retailers to disguise the inadequacies of their furniture.

What are veneers?

The Merriam-Webster 2010 dictionary defines a veneer to be a layer of wood of superior value or excellent grain to be glued to an inferior wood†

So, veneers are thin strips of wood that are glued together to form the appearance of solid wood. There is a great case for the use of veneers if you’re a furniture manufacturer or retailer, but as a customer you really need to avoid them at all cost.

There is some expensive veneered furniture out there though; it can’t be that bad, can it?

A surprising amount of retailers who claim to be selling high quality wooden furniture will actually be selling wooden furniture finished with a veneer. In general a lot of customers won’t know what a veneer is, and even less will know what could potentially lie beneath.

Cross-Section of Solid Oak

Hand crafted furniture is a high quality investment.

In the second part of our look at hand crafted furniture we will discover the processes and skills that go into making hand crafted furniture and how it can actually save you money!

Dovetail Joints on Drawers

Furniture, hand crafted by skilled joiners.

A joiner gets his job title because of his skills of joining wood – joinery. This doesn’t mean screwing it together – far from it. When making hand crafted furniture a joiner will use traditional techniques to form high strength joints, such as dovetail joints and mortise and tenon joints. These joints have been used for centuries. You only have to look at antique furniture to see how long furniture hand crafted in this way can last. How many pieces of melamine covered chipboard furniture do you think will still be around in 200 years time?!

Hand crafted furniture can save you money

Yes, hand crafted furniture does cost more than the poor quality machine made furniture. However, the benefits far outweigh the extra cost. In fact, when you spread the price of hand crafted furniture across the years of extra life you’ll benefit from, you will find that you have actually saved money!

Box Dovetail Joints

Hand crafted furniture at Oak Furniture Land.

Every single piece of furniture we sell is hand crafted furniture. We insist on using only the highest quality timber, selected for its beauty and strength. This is then seasoned, before being quality control checked and passed to our skilled joiners. The care and pride that’s taken in hand crafting the furniture is apparent in every piece; not only in its stunning finish, but when you look at the build quality of the drawers and backs it’s obvious that strength and longevity is just as important. This is only possible with hand crafted furniture.

Our hand crafted furniture is available in solid oak, mango and mahogany living room furniture, bedroom furniture and dining room furniture. We also have a range of hand crafted mirrors that are new for 2010.

Hand Crafted Solid Oak
Chest of Drawers

Hand crafted solid hardwood furniture is the pinnacle of all furniture.

In the first of a two part special on hand crafted furniture we will look at the true definition of hand crafted furniture.

Hand crafted furniture vs. flat pack furniture

There are many types of furniture today on the market, a lot of which are made using computerised machinery to create flat pack kits that have to be assembled at home (usually with a poorly illustrated slip of paper by way of instructions), or are simply one piece mouldings. Only a select few retailers offer hand crafted furniture.

Hand crafted furniture doesn’t mean built it yourself!

Obviously a piece of flat pack furniture is going to be assembled at home by the purchaser. Not only does this mean that the tolerances on the measurements have to be wide to allow for mismatching of holes, dowels, etc., but it means that the person who assembles it is most probably not a skilled joiner, and will therefore not make the best job of construction anyway. This is hand made furniture in its loosest sense!

Hand Crafted Mahogany
Bed Footboard

Hand crafted furniture is so superior that it doesn’t really bear comparison, but due to cheapo furniture having the illusion of being a bargain many people are tempted into buying it.