Interior Styling Questions

Interior styling with your decor can become cumbersome and lead to a decor ripoff. Chasing every trending home design can also be expensive as we attempt to style up.

You need to decorate for yourself and not the trend. If you are shopping and find a piece of home decor at a higher end store and buy it, was it worth the cost? Furniture for example tends to have insane markups on the price and often people end up with a better branded Ikea.

Maybe it was a smaller privately owned shop. They may get their products from an out of town warehouse but still where did it come from? When looking at furnishings or home decor it is at least nice to know what you are getting for what you are giving them out of your pocket.

There are furnishings which are at these stores that are of quality. Then there are those which are not. My goal here is to inform and broaden the horizon beyond what the chain store has to offer. The local artisan often have quality which surpasses the chain store. They can offer pieces that reach beyond home decor but rather have value in art. Nevertheless one must also have the ability to know what is of quality among individual artisans and what is not.

Wood Decor in Furnishings

The first qualifier in wood furnishings is the wood itself. Is it recycled wood, composite, veneer over mdf or other cheaply made material? If any of these kinds of materials are used anywhere on the product it is not of higher quality. This is not a major problem as long as the price reflects its actual quality and it is something you like, then purchase it. If it is on the other hand being sold as quality wood decor and is overpriced leave it on the shelf.

Where materials are resourced is important. Recycled wood or reclaimed wood has become a fad in past years. Another to rise in popularity is shiplap art. Its cheap to obtain and deco can be made. Not all recycled woods are equal. How it is processed matters and certainly one would immediately know the difference between a 100 year old timber as compared to old broken down pallet wood. Thus recycled doesn’t always equal bad. When in doubt inquire as to where it came from.

If it is made of solid wood this is a step in the right direction. The next qualifier is its construction. Staples and glue is not something you want to see for furniture items and preferably not wood decor or furnishings. Nails are less desirable than screws. The best designed construction is where you see no fastening hardware at all excluding the obvious things like door hinges.

Brass, steel or higher grade aluminum hardware can interlock holding the pieces together inside the wood design. For smaller pieces of home decor such as wall hangings using glue is very common. Jointing is another common issue. Where two pieces of wood meet it should be as seamless as possible in the transition. The best is where the joint cannot be discerned within the work when completed.

Clearly not all items will be ideal with interior styling. Nonetheless these simple factors give you a great marker for knowing value to price.

Wood Glue Strength

For smaller works that are not load bearing and if high quality wood glue is used such as Titebond 3, it is perfectly fine. Do not underestimate wood glue strength. The bond the glue makes is in fact stronger than the wood itself.

I have tested glues to see how strong they can be. With drop tests using force to slam the item to the ground the breaks consistently happen within the wood itself. The joints where the item was glued remained intact. If inferior glue is used the joints that were glued will often fail first.

When purchasing we may not know the specifications of things used such as the type of glue. As a general rule mass produced items often use a lesser quality material. The Titebond brand is a popular favorite with woodworkers as this glue will go the distance for many applications. Out of that line of glue Titebond 3 is the preferred for my applications.

Wood Grain – Texture and Finish

The next qualifier beyond this point once again comes back to the wood. What type of wood is it? More than just the species of wood, is the selection of it for its grain and beauty? Many mass produced items you find will be painted or faux finished in some way. If it is stained you will see a very generic wood grain for the species that it is.

Wood that is hand chosen for artistic creation can be better controlled to obtain more beauty from that grain. Here is where additional costs come in for beautiful is expensive. Local wood workers pay attention to how wood is processed and cut on a mill.

Nevertheless not all timber is equal. The location, climate, access to water, age, if disease was present and other factors will impact growth when the tree was alive, This in turn will impact the outcome of the wood grain. Some of these aspects actually enhance the beauty of the grain rather than destroy it.

Wood Art Design in Woodworking

Wood art design is far more than length, width, and depth. On a mass produced level the items created are virtually all identical. With artistic creation each piece is uniquely different even if similar in shape or appearance.

For example the legs of a table may have different shapes if the designer wished to maintain as much of a natural appearance as possible. The size, color, and shape may all vary for each leg if a natural V grew in the tree and is used for the legs. The goal of an artist is not to create pieces which are perfectly identical to each other. Rather the artistic goal is to maximize the beauty of that single creation in its own design.

The construction of art decor may be similar but at times different methods will be customized as needed for that work. The key is for the construction to be solid and durable. There will be items that are more fragile such as jewelry boxes, counter display items, and some wood wall carvings. Nevertheless the best materials for construction are used and the decor design is made to give the most strength possible, especially for things like furniture.

Another level which reaches beyond anything mass production can touch is matching design with wood. In mass production wood is “forced” or cut to specification. In the opinion of an artisan this is butchery destroying what could be a beautiful piece.

The grain and shape of the wood can impact design. When wood is cut it can bend, bow, and flex. My lumber begins as rough cut pieces right off the log. It requires the knowledge and experience to understand the material to best match it to the art design one wishes to use. This preserves the beauty allowing for premium artwork.

Ask About the Product

Not all small wood shops are equal. Much depends upon the materials resourced and the design they use. Often differentiating quality from one to the next may not be as easy because many small shops sell online. Despite this one can often see the marks of quality through the images and the description of the item.

If enough details are not given for some of these qualifiers then contact them and ask. There is no harm in knowing what it is you are wanting to purchase. Additionally you may learn some interesting facts about where your next piece was sourced from and how it was made.

When one thinks about it many of these concepts are common sense. Yet we as consumers have become so accustomed to purchasing what is standardized through marketing in chain stores. That quality becomes more questionable in some places like Amazon when items come from locations we cannot trace or perhaps from overseas.

The market has become flooded with the lowest cost production to offer at similar competitive pricing. This is not a bad thing for most of what we need. Nevertheless when one desires quality we must not be fooled by the marketing which we have pushed in front of us daily.