Start with the wood.

Warm brown heartwood threaded with darker, cooler lines that move in soft, irregular waves. Moderately hard and very stable, which is why it's been a furniture wood for two centuries. Walnut is also one of the few woods that lightens with age, mellowing toward honey - if you'd rather it hold its depth, our Sable Walnut finish keeps that richness while still reading as natural walnut.

A light brown hardwood, often with a faint olive cast, and a straight, tight grain. Its pores are naturally sealed in a way Red Oak's aren't, making it denser and far more water-resistant. Flat-sawn White Oak moves with the seasons, which is why we use rift and quarter sawn cuts for pieces that need to stay flat.

Built like White Oak but with a warmer, faintly pink cast and more open pores. Those pores are why Red Oak takes stain so well - deep colors land evenly and the grain still reads clearly through even the darkest finishes. An interior wood; White Oak is the one for anything that meets moisture.

Starts from one of the hardest woods we work with - fine, even grain and a pale creamy tone. In burl form that tight grain gives way to dense clusters of small dark eyes and swirling figure. Burl is grown, not milled, so no two slabs repeat.

Burl cut from black poplar - a pale cream field dense with dark, swirling veining that reads differently from every angle. It's softer than our other burls, so Mappa pieces get a commercial-grade finish built to hold up to real use.

A golden-brown hardwood, faintly oily to the touch, straight-grained with a coarse, even texture. Those natural oils make it the standard for decay and moisture resistance. It deepens toward amber indoors and silvers outdoors if left unfinished.

High contrast and unusually graphic - a pale golden-blonde field streaked with bold, irregular near-black veining and warm orange. Black and White Limba come from the same tree; black refers to the figured, streaked portion of the log, so no two boards match. Softer than the oaks, and happiest on surfaces that aren't taking daily impact.

Shifts from warm cream to deep brown within a single board, sometimes with pink or near-black passages where spalting has moved through the wood. Mango is milled from orchard trees at the end of their fruit-bearing lives, making it one of the few hardwoods that's a byproduct rather than a harvest. Moderately hard, and strictly interior.

Deep brown heartwood set against lighter, honey-colored sapwood, with sweeping grain that curves and flows. Monkeypod grows wide - three to four feet through the trunk - so it yields single-slab natural-edge tops most species can't produce without a glue line. Very durable and moderately hard.