Different Wood Shades: Light, Medium and Dark Woods

Wood shades are usually grouped as light, medium and dark, and most shade names are simply species names: maple and basswood for pale wood, oak and teak for mid-brown, cherry for reddish brown, walnut and ebony for dark. Stain colours borrow the same names. Wikipedia's wood finishing article notes that stains change wood colour and can give bland-looking woods the appearance of prized furniture woods, which is why a can labelled cherry or walnut may contain neither.

The second part of the name is the undertone. Two boards can both be medium brown and still clash because one leans red and the other olive or gray. The design blog Chris Loves Julia makes undertone its first rule for mixing wood tones and notes that most wood is warm.

• Basswood - pale white to light brown, with no clear line between sapwood and heartwood (The Wood Database). Our basswood page covers identification.
• Hard maple - the sapwood, which is what most maple lumber is, ranges from nearly white to off-white cream, sometimes with a reddish or golden hue; the heartwood is a darker reddish brown (The Wood Database). See hard maple.

Pale woods show their undertone most clearly: a golden maple and a pinkish maple look different side by side even though both read as light.

• White oak - light to medium brown, commonly with an olive cast (The Wood Database). Red oak is similar but, as The Wood Database notes, slightly more reddish; colour alone is not a reliable way to tell them apart. See white oak and red oak.
• Teak - golden or medium brown, darkening with age (The Wood Database). See teak.
• Black cherry - light pinkish brown when freshly cut, darkening to a medium reddish brown with time and light (The Wood Database). See black cherry.

Cherry is the classic trap: because it darkens with light, a new cherry table may not match an old cherry cabinet until the new piece has had time to darken.

• Black walnut - heartwood from light pale brown to dark chocolate brown with darker streaks, sometimes with a gray, purple or reddish cast; the sapwood is pale yellow-gray to nearly white (The Wood Database). Boards often show both. See black walnut.
• Wenge - medium brown, sometimes reddish or yellowish, with nearly black streaks; an oil finish can make it look nearly black (The Wood Database). See wenge.
• Ebony - the darkest; The Wood Database lists Gaboon ebony as endangered, Mun ebony as critically endangered and Macassar ebony as vulnerable, and notes that wenge is often used as a substitute.

Chris Loves Julia's rules, restated, with the species facts above to make them concrete:

• Start from the biggest surface. The floor, cabinets or largest piece sets the palette.
• Match undertones. Decide whether that dominant wood leans warm (red, orange, golden: cherry, teak, red oak) or cool (olive or gray: white oak, some walnut), and pick other woods that lean the same way.
• Contrast on purpose. A clearly light wood next to a clearly dark one looks intentional; two browns that are almost the same look like a failed match.
• Repeat each tone at least twice in a room and spread the repeats around.
• Consider grain. Large, open grain such as oak reads casual; fine grain such as maple or cherry reads more formal. Matching grain can tie together woods of different colours.
• Separate with a rug or textile when two woods sit close together.

If you do not know the species of a piece, a photo of its grain in WoodLens will suggest it, and our wood grain identification page explains how to read the grain yourself.

Wood colour is not fixed. The Wood Database explains that ultraviolet light and oxidation both shift colour, and that the change can be slowed but not stopped. Most woods darken: purpleheart turns brown, padauk and bloodwood turn deep brown, osage orange heads toward dark brown. A few start dark and lighten, including wenge and panga panga. To slow the change, The Wood Database suggests several coats of finish, keeping the wood out of direct sun, an exterior spar varnish with UV inhibitors, or using dyes when a fixed colour matters.

The finish itself also shifts the shade. Wikipedia's wood finishing article describes shellac ranging from nearly clear (super blond) to rich orange (garnet), alkyd varnish adding a yellowish tint, and oils such as linseed and tung giving a warm glow. The same board can look a shade lighter or darker depending on which of these goes on it, so test on an offcut first.

This page was drafted with AI help, and every fact was checked against the sources listed on the page.