Natural Beauty of Wood
The Wonderful Inconsistency of Wood

Natural Beauty of Wood

The beauty of real hardwood is created by the variation of grain texture and color. Wood is particularly noted for its variety in graining. This is the nature of the hardwood species and unusual graining or color variations are a natural and acceptable condition of quality wood finishes.

Color variation is more pronounced in the lighter stain colors. After hardwoods are finished they are affected by exposure to sunlight and other types of light. This slow change, called "mellowing", is always occurring so that in a year's time, a significant difference in the color has occurred. New cabinets will never be the same color as an aged sample or bathroom display.

Red Oak is an open grained hardwood with varying grain patterns. When finished, there will be a noted difference in the shades between the open and closed grain of the wood. Red Oak is occasionally streaked with green, yellow and black mineral deposits. The color of Red Oak ranges from a soft brown to a pink shade to a white cast. These natural color variations between pieces enhance the character of the finished product.

Cherry is a moderately heavy, hard and strong wood. Cherry machines and sands to a glasslike smoothness. It is noted for its porous, close grained patterns. Ordinarily, Cherry may be identified by the appearance of occasional "gum spots".

Hickory is known to be very hard, very heavy, and very strong. The sapwood is light to golden white and the heartwood is light to dark-brown. Hickory is an open grained hardwood with a wide variation of color. It specifically has black mineral streaks that can show up anywhere.

Maple is a strong, close-grain wood that has creamy white sapwood and light-brown to reddish brown heartwood with occasional mineral streaks. Maple is generally characterized by its evenly spaced predominantly straight grained appearance, although it can have wavy or even curly grain.

It is the beauty and nature of wood to have these characteristics and variations of graining and color which will be present in the cabinetry that Woodpro Cabinetry produces. Our cabinetry is constructed using many pieces of solid wood and wood veneers. An average drawered 24 vanity face has 25 separate pieces of wood. Graining differences as well as normal color change can be expected.

Glaze Finish Return Policy

Due to the unique difference in tones and glaze buildup in corners and on moldings, cabinets cannot be returned due to variation in the glaze finish.

Wood ain't like clay in a potter's hand.

It is not poured into a mold like cultured marble, not extruded, rolled or molded like molten metal and not mixed from chemicals. Wood comes from a living tree - and not one that died and was covered over thousands of years ago. In fact what the poet, Joyce Kilmer, stated so eloquently almost 100 years ago still sums up my respect for trees when he wrote:

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree...
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Shown here are some of our hickory board samples.
They show not only what is acceptable for the face of a frame,
but also the backside of face frames, toe boards and other components.
Photo by Carolyn Brandt

The beauty of real hardwood is created by the variation of grain texture and color. Wood is particularly noted for its variety in graining. This is the nature of the hardwood species and unusual graining or color variations are a natural and acceptable condition of quality wood finishes.

Our cabinetry is constructed using many pieces of solid wood and wood veneers. An average drawered 24" vanity face has 25 separate pieces of wood. Graining differences as well as normal color change can be expected.

Within a species of trees the appearance can vary dramatically even from two trees growing close to each other due to their access to sunlight. There can be variances from region to region based on the amount of rainfall received and the affects of heat, cold and ice and high winds. The color and grain pattern within the same tree can also vary based on how the saw mill slices through the tree and by the closeness to the middle heartwood, outside sapwood, limbs, wounds to the tree - especially near torn off limbs (from ice, snow, wind and age) that allow mineral build-up.

The length of the growing season can affect the color of Oak wood. We seldom use Southern Red Oak because of the long growing season and related fungus discoloration's, but instead use Northern Oak which has a shorter growing season with better color and grain pattern.

Much like molded materials, wood being processed for cabinetry can be affected if temperature and humidity are not consistent. In addition to its natural cracks and open knots, it can have cracks and checks added in the kiln drying operations that occurs before we get our lumber. This drying process does kill any worms or fungus present in the wood.

As cabinetmakers we actually can't change the wood much. Our job is to select parts according to general industry standards, and then machine, sand, finish and assemble the wood parts. We are responsible for the workmanship and for using or not using part of the wood -- such as knots, splits and extreme mineral streaks. We work hard at being consistent at doing this.

We use only structurally sound wood but in order to keep our cabinetry affordable for you and your customers we make decisions as to what is acceptable based in part upon how close to eye level it is. If we used "eye level quality" lumber on the medicine cabinet top, which is only seen before installation or on the vanity toe board then our costs and our prices would be much higher.

We're also pickier on our "Premium" cabinetry than on our "Good" price category cabinetry.

For each of the hundreds of cabinets we build each day our people are literally making hundreds of decisions about the acceptability of the components that makes up one cabinet. They have sample grade boards for each wood species we use to guide them in these decisions. They have sample stain color guidelines, which must be met. They also have workmanship standards for machining, sanding and the assembly tolerances and appearance.

Even with each production team member responsible for their own quality, with logging and analysis of all rejected components and sub-assemblies (doors, drawers and frames) plus pre-finish and pre-carton inspections we can still send out a cabinet that you and we are not proud of. When that happens we want you to notify us and return it to us.

But please understand our occasional frustration when after our lumber processing folks have weeded out the kiln drying and natural tree Defects, our machine and sanding operators have done their part. Correctly, our finish technicians have wiped the stain to further enhance the natural beauty of the wood and professionally applied our finish. Our final assembly staff have fit all parts and sub-assemblies together as needed. Then just as proud as punch we send it to you and low and behold rather than telling us what amazing people we are, you tell us that the grain pattern on the top left drawer is wilder than on the top right drawer!

Imagine our surprise at hearing this. We didn't just slap the cabinet together and throw it over the wall -- we worked real hard on it. Yet, if we slipped up we want to make it right.

If you get a cabinet where the workmanship is fine but the cabinet wood looks a bit inconsistent we ask you to visualize the trees in your neighborhood or those you've seen on visits to Missouri and think of just how beautiful and varied they are. If they vary so much on the outside it stands to reason that they should vary on the inside and therefore on any piece of bath furniture made from them.

It might help to read our "Natural Beauty of Wood". It has general information plus specific information about Oak, Cherry and Hickory. It is on the backside of our installation instructions inside the hardware bag for each cabinet. If this doesn't satisfy you we may have to thow you over the wall! Just kidding!!

Seriously, call us with your problems and we'll do our best to make it right. We will appreciate your education on the wonderful inconsistency of wood, but we want you to be satisfied with our bath cabinetry so you'll be back for more.

As my brother Glen often says,

"Wood is consistently inconsistent!"