How Can You Tell If Your Wood Furniture is of Good Quality?

Furniture is an integral part of our homes. There are many shapes, sizes, types and materials from which the furniture is and can be made.

Depending on your preference and style you can choose something futuristic, colourful or something a bit rustic and old school. In these two last categories, wooden furniture fits the best and thanks to some new trends it is making a huge comeback in interior design.

Most furniture’s quality is judged by its price and looks, but when it comes to wooden furniture, the price of it tells only half of the story. To appraise the quality, for a thorough inspection, of your wooden furniture you will need to focus on joints, drawers and the finish of the wood as these are the vital signs of quality but you will also have to open everything, look everywhere and shake things up to see what you get.

Thanks to these pointers and places like kalustofurniture.co.uk we can easily assess what we have and the level of quality of the pieces that surround us in our favourite rooms. The article today will go a bit into depth regarding the ways you can tell whether your wooden furniture is any good or not. Keep reading and find out more!

Looking

When shopping for furniture don’t let your hearth decide on sheer looks. If you want a quality piece of furniture you will have to work a bit. When buying wooden pieces try and look around them. Don’t forget to take a peek beneath because a lot can be hidden beneath a wooden table or chair for instance. When looking at your potentially new wooden furniture piece try to feel it with your hands. Feel the smoothness and the finish of the piece, feel the veneer and look for bumps and possible unsmooth and jagged edges.

A good finish is important to wooden furniture because if it has been done with haste and lack of attention you will feel areas that didn’t receive lacquer and will have rough edges with possible splinters. Look beneath chairs or desks and tables. Joints are really important with wooden furniture and the stronger the joints the stronger the furniture, it is simple as that. If the joints are thin, flimsy and wee, this is the piece you want to avoid because it will not last long and may end up breaking or injuring someone.

Opening

When buying wooden furniture like dressers and armoires, make sure to open any doors and drawers. This may seem a bit funny to you but it is an important thing to do if you want to get a closer look at what you buying and to see if they skimmed on some parts. The fitment of doors and drawers is really important. You don’t want to buy a wooden piece of furniture that will be the centre of some room and see that it has crooked doors or flimsy drawers that don’t close well or screech a lot.

When opening doors and drawers make sure they open easily, glide on the hinges and that they remain level after being fully opened or extended. Are the drawers solidly constructed and is there any wobbling? Is the interior of the dresser smooth and does it match the other wood colour and grain? Is the hardware like handles and such firmly attached and able to hold the weight of the doors and drawers?

The jiggle

This method of quality check is without any doubt the most ridiculous one, but it is also a very necessary step. Jiggling your furniture seems and looks ridiculous but by doing so you are making sure everything is stable, balanced and stiff. This is most important when buying a table made out of wood.

If it’s wobbly, uneven at the bottom or just generally not firm enough you should probably look the other way. Chairs should be sturdy enough to stand weight on them and shouldn’t screech and feel flimsy. This method is a bit unorthodox but it helps. Anything that doesn’t feel right and tough as if it was made from a single piece of wood shouldn’t fall into your obtainable category.

Before buying

Before you do any of these things you should probably be as informed about the material as possible, especially in things that matter. None of this will help you if you do not know what to look for in quality wood furniture.

For instance, the best thing to look at dressers and armoires that have drawers look for joints that are the toughest and most durable. Those are dovetail connections that are notched connections between two wood panels. They are the most secure and long-lasting joint construction and they keep a clean wooden look without your furniture piece being perforated many times by metal screws.

Wooden furniture pieces that are rustic and that hold the most value are those that are all made out of wood including the glides for drawers. Glides can be wood on wood, but metal slides and slides with ball bearings are easier to do and more cost-effective which is why you will meet the latter two more than the first one. If you buy a wooden furniture piece, as we already mentioned, make sure that the guides are not flimsy and robust enough to withstand the constant weight and use over time.

If you are shopping for case pieces of furniture make sure that they are all out of solid wood, and if they are not to ensure longevity and sturdiness at least the frame should be out of solid wood.

With chairs look for chairs that have their seat back made out of one and two pieces of wood tops. This way you ensure their sturdiness and longevity. Also, look for corner block wish should, at best be both screwed and glued together, and they should be present on all four corners of the chair to reduce the stress on the chair legs.

Tables can be solid ones and are best out of solid wood. You can also opt for an extendable table and it can have three different mechanism – butterfly, geared and wood on wood. The best thing is to try and test each one to make sure the fitment is OK and that the supports can hold without deviations.