Exotic Hardwood

Choosing an exotic hardwood for your home renovations can add charm and sophistication to your flooring, cabinets, countertops, and other surfaces. However, when choosing your materials, it’s also important to keep in mind that your purchase should be environmentally friendly as well as easy on your budget.

Purchasing exotic hardwood lumber that has been raised on a plantation, for example, is a wonderful way to prevent over harvesting and deforestation. Best of all, there are benefits involved for you as well. Not only does it keep the cost of some exotic hardwood trees from rising, but plantation raised trees tend to be better cared for than trees that have been harvested from the wild.

This means that not only are plantation raised trees grown in the best conditions, but they are closely watched for signs of mold, insect infestation, and other disease so that they can be treated accordingly. Plantations are also adept at cutting and treating their wood, providing you with professionally dried, furnished lumber.

If prices are still too high for your liking, you can browse through selections of rough cut exotic hardwood as well. This is lumber that has not been dried or treated in any way. Since the lumberyard doesn’t have to perform these services, this means the price of your hardwood will be significantly less.

If you decide to purchase rough cut exotic hardwood, it’s important to research ahead of time regarding the type of drying and finish that works best. For example, Lacewood is a beautiful wood that turns brittle and splinters under kiln heating, which means that it is mostly air dried. This method tends to take much longer, but it also results in stronger wood. In contrast, teak requires kiln drying because otherwise you run the risk of it not drying all the way. Kiln heating kills any insect eggs or larvae inside the wood as well.

The type of finish is important as well. Cocobolo is known for being an incredibly oily, watertight wood, which means that oil based finishes won’t work well with it, whereas Cedar takes to most furnishes beautifully.

You can learn about this and more from your lumberyard representative. In the long run, learning more about how your exotic hardwood is grown, harvested, and manufactured will do more than just make sure you’re getting the best price. It will also guarantee that your wood surfaces remain beautiful and strong for years.