People prefer wooden furniture due to its durability. If people buy quality furniture, they will last a long time. There are a few factors to determine the quality of wooden furniture. People carry the risk of taking cheap quality furniture if they are not checking the quality before buying.
It is an essential step because some manufacturers do not make furniture full of wood. They will make sure that their duplicate products look like high-quality wooden furniture. However, following these tips mentioned below will make sure to identify which is high and which is low-quality wooden furniture.
In general, different types of wooden furniture most often used by people are chairs, tables, cupboards, sofas, beds and many more. We will look into common tips for judging the quality of these wooden furnitures.
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Stability test:
This is for checking the quality of the chairs. We have to make sure the legs of the chair are evenly balanced. Sit on the chair and move around a bit. If you feel that chair is a bit imbalanced even slightly, it’s not good to buy.
In the case of tables, you can shake them a bit to check for balance. High-quality wooden furniture will have good finishing all around the body.
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Checking joints:
The joints of wooden furniture should be of high quality because they bear the weight of furniture along with people sitting or things put above them. We will two types of joints most common, and they are as follows.
- Joints with nails and staples
- Joints with screws and wood joined with glue
Coming to the first one, if you guys find that joints are with nails or staples, it indicates that furniture joints are of low quality. The nails are not stable enough, and the furniture gets damaged in less time. Same thing with staples. Do not consider buying the wooden furniture with nails or staples as joints.
In the second case, screws hold the wood pieces together more firmly. If the joints are joined together and you are not finding any screws or nails, that is the highest quality people will find. The pieces of wood are cut in shape, and adjoining wood pieces are joined together with glue. That is a strong bond compared to any others.
Well, long story short, your first preference when considering joints will be, joints which are joined with glue. The second preference will be joined with screws. But do not buy furniture with their joints consisting of nails as it is low quality.
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Checking drawers:
This is about wooden tables, cupboards where drawers are used to put stuff in them. Try to open and close the drawers and observe the smoothness. If the movement is hard, you may have to move to other products available.
One more thing to observe is that are drawers fitted with metal slides or wooden slides? Usually, metal slides in the bottom of the drawer give the smooth movement when opening and closing them out. If the wooden furniture which you are thinking to shop has a wooden slide, avoid it.
Check the joints, finishing and scratches all around the furniture. If a product is made of high-quality wood, it will have good finishing with no scratches.
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Understanding the types of woods:
People love wooden furniture as they are long lasting, attractive and durable. As few factors above will help in identifying low and high-quality wooden furniture, people should know what type of wooden furniture they want. There are different types of woods and have their importance, different colours and unique appearance.
Three types of woods used in making furniture are as follows.
- Hardwood
- Softwood
- Man-made wood
Among all, man-made wood is cheaper. It has got a lot of advantages compared to hard and soft wood. But if we have to choose only one, then you should go with hardwood. Because it is the most durable and furniture made with hardwood look premium and lasts a long time.
Most common hardwood used in making furniture is as follows:
- Mapple
- Oak
- Cherry and many more
See there are many species available under hard, soft and man-made wood and they differ with countries. It’s because of the availability. Colours vary with each species.
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Checking for cracks:
We are sure that new ones that are placed on shops will not have cracks on them. But just as the last step, have a look around and make sure that there are no cracks on the furniture. Cracks indicate low quality, damaged or used product.
One general advice is to go for quality wooden furniture rather than buying used or low-quality ones. At one time or another, they will give additional problems which need to be repaired. Do not rush, save up money but aim for good quality wooden furniture with all the attributes that we discussed.
Please search and confirm yourselves about the type of wood you want to get (hard, soft, man-made). After this, search on the internet and finalize about which wood species you will be preferring. Upon visiting the shop, do the checks as mentioned above in the article.
By selecting the type of wood, the list gets narrowed down, and it will help to choose the products faster. Upon checking the finalised items for quality, people can confirm that furniture is of high quality and can buy without any doubts.
Verdict
These are some of the helpful tips in judging the quality of wooden furniture. As we are putting a lot of money in buying wooden furniture, we hope that it lasts longer and is of high quality. You might buy lower quality furniture because all look alike with minor differences. Those differences are crucial and can be found by following the above tips.
No one will want to sell lower quality products which effect their reputation in society. But it is on our end to check the quality and make sure that we are buying good quality wooden furniture.
