I must admit, choosing the species of hardwood was actually quite difficult for us. If you haven’t had the luxury of walking into a hardwood store (or looking online for that matter), you’ll quickly discover that there are thousands of options to choose from. For us, we wanted something that was strong, aesthetically pleasing and cost effective.

We were pretty sure we wanted a solid wood that would be finished on-site instead of a pre-finished product, although there was certainly some debate about it. The pre-finished products are usually stronger than their counterparts, but you have to like the particular finish options (which we didn’t). The pre-finished material was obviously more expensive, but the installation costs were cheaper… so comparatively, it was pretty much a wash.

From an aesthetic standpoint, we considered walnut… however it’s neither strong nor cost effective, so we abandoned it pretty quickly. We looked at bamboo as well, which is both strong and sustainable, but neither of us like the look of it. We also considered maple, which is very strong but has a pretty plain grain pattern. We were also warned a few times that maple doesn’t stain particularly well because of its density. It’s obviously workable, but you have to accept the imperfections that may result.

In the end, we went with a 3 1/4” quarter sawn white oak, which was installed on-site and stained a darkish “cappuccino” brown. On the Janka hardness scale, white oak is a 1360, which puts it more or less in the middle of the pack when it comes to general strength.

Quarter sawn refers to the way the material is cut, in which the logs are first cut into quarters before being cut into individual boards. The main benefits being a 50% increase of stability against warping and an improved grain aesthetic (in my opinion at least). From what I understand, this method doesn’t produce any more waste than plain sawing although it’s more labour intensive, which obviously adds to the cost.