Types of Hardwood for Furniture: 10 Woods Compared

The types of hardwood for furniture that most US shops use are red oak, white oak, hard and soft maple, black cherry, black walnut, ash, hickory, yellow-poplar and alder, with sapele and mahogany the common imports. For each: USDA Wood Handbook side hardness at 12% moisture, tangential shrinkage (lower means more stable), and the 4/4 price per board foot at The Wood Yard in Concord, Georgia, from its list updated September 2026.

• Red oak - 1,290 lbf, 8.6%, $6.10. Open grain with cathedral patterns; Oak City Customs calls it the most common furniture choice in the country. Red oak
• White oak - 1,360 lbf, 10.5%, $10.00. Quartersawn white oak shows ray fleck and is the Mission-style classic. White oak
• Hard maple - 1,450 lbf, 9.9%, $8.35. Pale, fine and hard; Cabinfield lists it for worktops. Hard maple
• Soft maple - red maple 950 lbf, 8.2%, $8.25. Oak City Customs rates it about 25% less hard than hard maple; sometimes sold as ambrosia maple with beetle streaks. Soft maple
• Black cherry - 950 lbf, 7.1%, $6.75. Pinkish-brown that darkens to rich red-brown with light. Cherry
• Black walnut - 1,010 lbf, 7.8%, $16.50. Chocolate brown; the premium domestic hardwood. Walnut
• White ash - 1,320 lbf, 7.8%, $6.10. Pale, open grain; Oak City Customs calls it a long-established furniture wood. Ash
• Hickory - shagbark 1,880 lbf, 10.5%, $6.00. The hardest and heaviest here. Hickory
• Yellow-poplar - 540 lbf, 8.2%, $5.35 (listed as poplar). Soft and even, with pale sapwood and greenish heartwood (Knotty Lumber Co.). Yellow-poplar
• Red alder - 590 lbf, 7.3%, knotty alder $4.30. Often used as a budget stand-in for cherry, as Cabinfield notes. Alder

Imports on the same list: sapele $9.10 (1,510 lbf in the handbook's Table 5-5b) and Honduran mahogany $7.50 (true mahogany 800 lbf). See sapele and mahogany.

Hardness is only one number. For chairs and anything that takes bending loads, the USDA Wood Handbook's modulus of rupture (bending strength at 12% moisture) matters more:

• Shagbark hickory 20,200 psi, sugar maple 15,800 psi, white ash 15,400 psi, white oak 15,200 psi, black walnut 14,600 psi, northern red oak 14,300 psi, black cherry 12,300 psi, yellow-poplar 10,100 psi.

Practical matches:

• Dining tables and desks - white oak, hard maple or walnut for a hard, stable top; quartersawn stock moves least, because radial shrinkage is about half of tangential.
• Chairs - hickory has by far the highest bending strength here, with sugar maple, ash and oak close behind, so all four hold up in thin legs and rails.
• Heirloom case pieces - cherry and walnut, the two most stable common hardwoods at 7.1% and 7.8% tangential shrinkage.
• Budget and hidden parts - yellow-poplar, soft and even, at the low end of the price list.
• Carving - basswood, at 410 lbf the softest hardwood here, is the easiest to cut; Cabinfield lists walnut for high-end carved pieces.

On The Wood Yard's September 2026 list, the cheapest 4/4 hardwoods per board foot were knotty alder at $4.30, poplar at $5.35, basswood at $5.95, hickory at $6.00 and red oak and ash at $6.10. The same list prices white oak at $10.00 and walnut at $16.50, and gives volume discounts of $0.35 per board foot at 20 board feet, $0.70 at 50 and $1.05 at 100. Prices vary by region and by yard, so use these as a ranking rather than a quote.

Before naming the species, confirm what the piece is made of; The Wood Database's identification guide makes this step one. Look at an edge or the end of a top: solid wood shows the growth rings continuing through the thickness, veneer shows a thin face layer over a core of plywood, particleboard or MDF, and a printed or foil finish shows no real grain at all.

Cabinfield argues that engineered woods are inferior to solid hardwood and raises indoor-air concerns about some panel products. Knowing which you have matters for repair, too: solid wood can be sanded deeply, a thin veneer cannot.

The Wood Database's sequence works well for furniture: confirm solid wood, check colour on a freshly exposed or unfinished surface, read the grain, feel the weight and hardness, consider the piece's history, then examine a prepared end grain under a 10x loupe. Context narrows the field fast - The Wood Database notes that black walnut and cherry are typical woods in Amish furniture and that aromatic red cedar is the traditional closet and chest lining.

The unfinished back of a drawer or the underside of a top is the best place to photograph. WoodLens returns the most likely species with a confidence level and alternatives, and our wood grain identification page gives the pore checks that separate red from white oak and hard from soft maple.

Some exotic furniture woods are restricted in international trade. The Wood Database's explainer summarises the CITES position: Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra) is on Appendix I, which covers finished products such as guitars; since 2 January 2017 every other Dalbergia species - including cocobolo and kingwood - plus three bubinga species and kosso sit on Appendix II. The listings restrict crossing international borders, not owning or using the wood at home, and the article describes an exemption for non-commercial finished items under 10 kilograms per shipment.

Friends of the Earth's Good Wood Guide, which it says dates from 1997 and may be partly out of date, advises repairing existing furniture first, then reclaimed timber, then locally grown FSC-certified wood.

"Strongest" can mean two things, and the USDA Wood Handbook (Table 5-3b, 12% moisture) measures both.

Hardest (side hardness, resistance to dents), top five among US-grown hardwoods in the table:

• Pignut hickory 2,140 lbf
• Mockernut hickory 1,970 lbf
• Shagbark hickory 1,880 lbf
• Pecan 1,820 lbf
• Shellbark hickory 1,810 lbf

Strongest in bending (modulus of rupture, what matters for chair legs and shelves), top five:

• Shagbark hickory 20,200 psi
• Pignut hickory 20,100 psi
• Black locust 19,400 psi
• Mockernut hickory 19,200 psi
• Live oak 18,400 psi

For comparison, the common furniture woods: sugar maple 1,450 lbf and 15,800 psi, white oak 1,360 lbf and 15,200 psi, black walnut 1,010 lbf and 14,600 psi, black cherry 950 lbf and 12,300 psi. Imported woods can be harder: Baird Brothers lists rosewood at 1,780 Janka and Octane Seating lists East Indian rosewood at 2,440 lbf.

• American chestnut. Chestnut blight, first noticed in New York in 1904, spread about 50 miles a year and killed more than three billion trees; Wikipedia counts only four mature American chestnuts left in the former range. Chestnut lumber on the market today is salvaged, often sold as "wormy chestnut" from long-dead, blight-killed trees.
• Brazilian rosewood and other Dalbergia. Restricted in international trade under CITES, as covered above.
• Old-growth timber. The USDA decay table lists old-growth and young-growth redwood, baldcypress and teak separately, because the old-growth heartwood is more decay resistant; young-growth wood sold today is not the same material as antique boards.

For outdoor furniture, decay resistance matters more than hardness. The USDA Wood Handbook's Table 14-1 groups heartwood by average decay resistance:

• Very resistant - black locust, osage-orange, red mulberry and Pacific yew; imported ipe, purpleheart and old-growth teak.
• Resistant - the cedars, white oaks, black walnut, old-growth redwood and baldcypress, chestnut, sassafras and mesquite; imported American mahogany, iroko and Spanish-cedar.
• Moderately resistant - black cherry, Douglas-fir, young-growth redwood; imported African mahogany, sapele and young-growth teak.
• Slightly or nonresistant - maples, ashes, birches, beech, hickories, elms, yellow-poplar, sycamore, basswood, spruces and most pines.

The table covers heartwood only; sapwood of every species decays readily, and the handbook warns resistance is lower in ground contact and in warm, humid climates. Baird Brothers also notes teak's natural oils make it termite and pest resistant, which is why it is the classic outdoor furniture wood.