The Types Of Wood For Shelves That We Use
We use a variety of wood species to suit your decor and shelving goals. Looking for something rich and luxurious, walnut is the wood for you! Or looking to add a pop of non-traditional color with a stain? Take a look at our pine and white oak selections. Whatever your design goals, we have the look for you.
Selecting your wood is the 2nd step in your shelf building process. For the first step, visit our bracket description page. And for the last step, visit our finish selection page.
Black walnut is a hard, dark hardwood that exudes luxury. Its chocolate tones and tight-grained appearance is prized by woodworkers and craftsmen for its workability and fine finish. Black walnut's coloration can range from rich brown chocolate tones, with some reddish tint, to light creamy white in the sapwood. As black walnut ages, it develops a lustrous patina, furthering its upscale appearance. Black walnut is commonly used for high-end cabinetry, natural flooring, and fine furniture.
We only offer 1 finish option for our black walnut shelves. This is because we feel any staining that is applied to the shelf will only hide the natural beauty of the grain. If you'd like to apply your own stain, we do offer the ability to purchase these unfinished as well. You can couple our walnut shelves with the heavy duty Hovr bracket.
Shop our heavy duty walnut floating shelves.
Black Walnut
Black walnut is a hard, dark hardwood that exudes luxury. Its chocolate tones and tight-grained appearance is prized by woodworkers and craftsmen for its workability and fine finish. Black walnut's coloration can range from rich brown chocolate tones, with some reddish tint, to light creamy white in the sapwood. As black walnut ages, it develops a lustrous patina, furthering its upscale appearance. Black walnut is commonly used for high-end cabinetry, natural flooring, and fine furniture.
We only offer 1 finish option for our black walnut shelves. This is because we feel any staining that is applied to the shelf will only hide the natural beauty of the grain. If you'd like to apply your own stain, we do offer the ability to purchase these unfinished as well. You can couple our walnut shelves with the heavy duty Hovr bracket.
Shop our heavy duty walnut floating shelves.
Cherry
Aside from black walnut, natural cherry wood is perhaps the most sought after furniture grade hardwood in North America. It comes from the American Black Cherry fruit tree. Cherry's colors range from salmon-pink, to reddish-brown when first harvested. The most defining characteristic of cherry is its aging process. It starts out a light pink, but darkens over time to a rich reddish hue. It's also well known for its lustrous patina as it ages. Due to these unique characteristics, cherry is used widely by woodworkers and furniture aficionados.
We only offer 1 finish option for our cherry shelves. This is because we feel any staining that is applied to the shelf will only hide the natural beauty of the grain. If you'd like to apply your own stain, we do offer the ability to purchase these unfinished as well. You can couple our cherry shelves with the heavy duty Hovr bracket.
Shop our heavy duty cherry floating shelves.
Hard Maple
Maple wood looks great and is incredibly strong. Fine furniture collectors and woodworkers alike gravitate towards it for its creamy-light color, durability, and smooth grain pattern.
There are multiple maple species spread throughout the globe. At Shelf Expression, we use hard maple, which is also known as sugar maple or rock maple.
Sugar maples are the same trees that produce maple syrup. Though we don't recommend licking our maple shelves!
We only offer 1 finish option for our maple shelves. This is because we feel any staining that is applied to the shelf will only hide the natural beauty of the grain. If you'd like to apply your own stain, we do offer the ability to purchase these unfinished as well. You can couple our maple shelves with the heavy duty Hovr bracket.
Shop our heavy duty maple floating shelves.
White Oak
White oak is one of the most popular furniture grade woods used in the US and is associated with traditional, craftsman and mission style furniture. Its high durability and unique grain pattern make it a contender as being one of the easiest species to recognize.
Its open grain makes this an easy hardwood to stain, and allows us to get a little more creative with stain choices. It'll look great either stained to closely match your other furniture, or sealed with a clear, natural finish. If you'd like to apply your own stain, we do offer the ability to purchase these unfinished as well. You can couple our cherry shelves with the heavy duty Hovr bracket.
Shop our heavy duty white oak floating shelves.
Yellow Southern Pine
Yellow southern pine has a distinctive color and grain, its sapwood ranging from white to yellowish and heartwood from yellow to reddish-brown. It combines looks, strength, and extreme ease of treatment with the highest nail-holding ability.
While pine can at times be tricky to stain at times due to its uneven and open grain pattern, we get around this by using an oil based gel stain. The result is an even stain without the blotchiness traditional oil based stains typically exhibit. This also gives us the ability to get really creative with the staining, allowing for a huge array of colors and hues.
Couple our fully customizable pine wood with either our dowel rod floating shelves, Industrial Pipe 'L' brackets, or Industrial Pipe Straight brackets.
Now that you have your bracket and wood selected, head to our finish options for the last step.