Wood Guide

Choosing the wood before you choose the price.

Name: Foursquare Joinery
Price range: $$$

Two quotes for the same drawing can differ by two and a half times, and almost always the reason is on this page. Paint-grade or stain-grade, which species and why, where solid timber stops and veneer starts, how much a panel moves between a Michigan August and a Michigan January, and which of the finishes you will be able to repair yourself. It works with any carpenter, including one who is not us.

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Paint-grade or stain-grade

This is the fork, and most people have never heard the words. Paint-grade means the timber is a substrate; stain-grade means the timber is the finish. The multiplier below is not a markup for prettiness — it is the boards you paid for and did not use.

Most Built-Ins

Paint-grade

Poplar, birch ply, MDF

The timber is a substrate

1× the baseline every quote starts from

Grain is nobody’s business Most built-ins, most of the time

Under two coats of pigment the species is invisible, so the shop can use stable, straight, inexpensive timber and take yield from every board. Poplar machines cleanly and holds a crisp arris; birch ply stays flat; MDF takes a sprayed edge better than anything else made. This is not the cheap option, it is the correct option for anything that is going to be a colour.

Yield is near total — a knot under paint is a knot nobody sees
Sprayed conversion varnish reads factory, not brushed
Colour-matchable to your existing trim or a wall colour
MDF for wide flat door panels: no movement, no telegraphing
In five years: chips at corners and handles, touch-up is a shop job

Stain-grade

Hardwood and matched veneer

The timber is the finish

2 – 3× over the same piece in paint-grade

Every board is selected Where the room is already timber

When the finish is clear, every board has to be chosen for figure and colour, adjacent boards have to agree with each other, and offcuts you would cheerfully use in paint-grade become firewood. That collapse in yield is where the money goes. It is not a markup for prettiness — it is the boards you paid for and did not use.

Yield can fall by half or more on figured stock
Doors and drawer fronts should be cut from one board so they match
Veneer has to be sequenced across a run or the run looks bought
End grain and edge banding are where a poor stain-grade job gives itself away
In five years: it has moved and it has darkened, and both look intentional

Both, in one piece

The usual honest answer

Colour where it is cheap, timber where it shows

1.3 – 1.8× depending on how much is stain-grade

Spends the money where it is seen Most alcove and media jobs

Painted carcases and face frames with hardwood shelves, lids or a bench top. The eye reads the timber and the budget goes to the square footage that is actually touched. On an alcove pair this is very often the right specification and it is what we would build in our own house.

Painted casework, hardwood adjustable shelves
Painted window seat, solid oak lid
Painted mudroom lockers, hard maple bench top
Painted media cabinetry, walnut floating shelves
Halves the stain-grade square footage without looking like a compromise

The question to ask a shop is not "how much is it" but "is this paint-grade or stain-grade", because two quotes for the same drawing can differ by two and a half times on that answer alone. If a quote does not say which, it is not a quote yet.

The species table

What each costs relative to the others, how it takes paint versus a clear finish, how much it moves, and — the column nobody publishes — what it is actually wrong for.

Species comparison: relative cost, finishing behaviour, movement, and what each timber is wrong for
Species	Relative cost	Takes finish	Movement	Wrong for
Hard maple	moderate	poor under stain, excellent clear	high	Anything you intend to stain dark — it blotches badly without a conditioner and even then it is a fight.
Cherry	high	needs no stain at all	low	A room you want to look the same in two years. It darkens noticeably for about eighteen months, then holds.
White oak (quartersawn)	high	excellent, takes fuming and lime	low quartersawn, high flatsawn	A modern flat-panel look — the ray fleck is the point, and it fights a minimal detail.
Walnut	highest	superb clear, never stain it	low	A sunny bay window. Direct light fades walnut toward grey-brown, and the piece you loved is not the piece you get.
Poplar	low	paint only	moderate	Anything clear-finished. The green and purple streaks are natural, permanent, and look like a mistake.
Birch ply	low to moderate	clear inside, paint outside	negligible	Exposed edges without banding, and any surface that will get wet more than once.

Two of these catch people out every time. Walnut in a south-facing bay will fade, and nobody mentions it until the third summer. And poplar under a clear finish looks green — genuinely green — which is why it is a paint-grade timber and not a cheap hardwood.

Solid, Veneer, Ply

A good built-in usually uses all three, on purpose.

A shop that builds everything from solid timber is not being generous with you; it is building something that will crack. Each of the three does one job well, and a well-specified piece puts each where it belongs and says so on the drawing.

Solid timber

Belongs in Face frames, door frames, lids, bench tops, shelf edges

Because Seen edge-on and takes wear

Anywhere the timber is handled, sat on, or looked at end-grain. Narrow widths so the movement stays small, and it is never fixed rigidly across its width.

Veneered ply or MDF

Belongs in Wide flat panels, door panels, carcase sides on show

Because Stays flat where solid cannot

A 24" solid panel wants to move a quarter of an inch a year. A veneered one moves nothing. This is the reason panel doors were invented and the reason they still float in their grooves.

Plain birch ply

Belongs in Carcase backs, bottoms, interiors, drawer boxes

Because Stable, strong, and unseen

Spending on hardwood where a door will be closed over it is money into a cupboard. Good ply, banded properly at the front edge, is the right answer and always has been.

If a quote specifies solid hardwood for wide flat panels, ask why. There is occasionally a good answer — a frame-and-panel door in a period room, sized correctly — and there is more often no answer at all.

Movement

What a Michigan winter does to a panel, in numbers.

Grand Rapids runs at roughly 65% relative humidity outdoors in August and about 25% inside a heated house in January. Timber tracks that, and it moves across the grain rather than along it. These are approximate figures for flatsawn hardwood across that swing — quartersawn moves roughly half as much — and they are the reason panels float and face frames are engineered.

Seasonal movement across the grain for flatsawn hardwood, from an August to a January indoor humidity
Width	August, ~65% RH	January, ~25% RH	What it means
6" panel	as built	about 1⁄16" narrower	Below the threshold where anyone notices. A tight fit is fine at this width.
12" panel	as built	about 1⁄8" narrower	The number in the brief. A 12" door panel must float, with the groove cut deep enough to swallow it.
24" panel	as built	about 1⁄4" narrower	Nobody builds this in solid timber. Use veneered ply, or make it two panels in a frame.
A face frame across 36"	as built	a hair	Face frames are built from narrow stiles and rails specifically so the movement lands at joints rather than across a width.
Along the grain, any length	as built	effectively nothing	Length is stable. Every joint in a carcase is designed around that asymmetry.

A gap that opens in February is the design working. Panels are built to float for exactly this reason. A joint that opens, or a door that has dropped, is a different thing entirely and it is covered by the warranty.

Practical consequence: a built-in installed in July is scribed with a slightly different allowance than one installed in January, because in July the timber is already at its widest. Ask when your piece is being installed and what allowance is being left. A shop that has an answer is a shop that has thought about it.

Finish Schedules

Which of these you can repair yourself, and which you cannot.

The finish is a schedule, not a colour: what goes on, in what order, in how many coats, and where it is applied. The most useful question about any of them is what happens when a five-year-old drags a toy across it.

Hardwax oil

Bench tops, window-seat lids, shelves, anything touched Repairable at home: Yes — by you, with a rag

Penetrates rather than sits on top, so a scratch is in the timber and not in a film. Sand the area, re-oil, blend. Two or three coats to start and a re-oil every few years on a hard-worked surface. It offers the least protection of the three and is the easiest thing in the world to look after.

Feels like: Timber, not plastic

Conversion varnish

Sprayed casework, doors, painted built-ins Repairable at home: No — a shop repair

A two-part catalysed finish sprayed under extraction and cured in the shop. It is what makes painted cabinetry look manufactured rather than brushed, and it is genuinely tough. It cannot be spot-repaired at home: a damaged door goes back to the shop, or it does not get fixed.

Feels like: Hard, smooth, factory

Waterborne lacquer

Clear-finished interiors, low-odour jobs Repairable at home: Partly — a shop job in practice

Low odour, fast cure, and it does not amber over time the way an oil-based lacquer does. That neutrality is the point on maple and birch, where an ambering finish turns everything yellow. Slightly softer than conversion varnish and slightly less water-resistant.

Feels like: Clear and neutral

Danish / tung oil

Small pieces, traditional work Repairable at home: Yes — easily

The traditional owner-maintained finish. Many thin coats, wiped on and back off, building slowly. Beautiful on walnut and cherry, offers very little protection against water, and needs redoing more often than anyone expects.

Feels like: Warm, low sheen

Pre-catalysed pigmented spray

Painted work where colour matching matters Repairable at home: No — a shop repair

Where the colour has to match an existing wall or trim exactly. Tinted in the shop and sprayed over a bonding primer. Keep the code: a labelled sample board left with the owner is worth more in five years than anything else in the handover pack.

Feels like: Even, opaque, crisp arris

A schedule that works for most whole-house built-ins: conversion varnish on painted casework, hardwax oil on any hardwood surface people touch, and a labelled sample board of every finish left in the cupboard for whoever owns the house next.

None of this needs us.

Take this page to any carpenter. Ask whether the quote is paint-grade or stain-grade, which species and why, where solid stops and veneer starts, what allowance is being left for movement at the season you are installing, and which parts of the finish you will be able to repair yourself. Five questions, and they will tell you more about a shop than any gallery of finished woodwork ever will — including ours.

Call (616) 555-0148 Request a Quote

Questions about species, finishes or movement? Call (616) 555-0148 or email hello@foursquarejoinery.example. Figures are typical for kiln-dried North American hardwood in a heated West Michigan house. Unusual species and unusual conditions behave differently; when in doubt we measure rather than assume.