Most of our wood has grown in the Alps. Solid wood furniture made from Alpine timber is full of life, because Alpine woods are exposed to all weather conditions and are therefore more resistant than conventional types of wood. In well-grown timber, and especially wood felled at the right time, nature and vitality remain in every fiber. Even after processing, you can still feel this sensation.
All woods come from controlled and sustainable forestry. We at 4betterdays.com actively support this. For instance, we recently put our promise into action by planting trees in cooperation with the Austrian Federal Forests. Our customers and fans contributed with likes and shares on social media channels, which determined the number of saplings planted. For our team, this meant: "Out of the office and on to planting trees."
All woods come from controlled and sustainable forestry. We at 4betterdays.com actively support this. For instance, we recently put our promise into action by planting trees in cooperation with the Austrian Federal Forests. Our customers and fans contributed with likes and shares on social media channels, which determined the number of saplings planted. For our team, this meant: "Out of the office and on to planting trees."
The Wood
Folklore attributes the maple with effective protection against witches. Particularly in Northern Germany, doors and rooms were sometimes decorated with maple, or maple wood pegs were driven into doors and thresholds. If maple leaves are picked on June 24th and subsequently dried, they are considered to have healing powers for all wounds if softened in boiling water beforehand.
The use of the wood is similar to that of Scots pine. Since the trunks and branches do not grow very thick, they are at most suitable as turning and carving wood, as well as for simple furniture, planed goods in interior and exterior construction, and in window construction. However, when freshly cut, the sapwood is very susceptible to blue stain fungi. Mugo pine oil for cosmetic products is obtained from fresh needles, branch tips, and branches. In the distillery, the oil is extracted by means of steam distillation. As finished mugo pine oil, it can be bottled in its natural state and offered for sale. It is used for external and internal application for catarrhs of the upper and lower respiratory tracts. In medicinal baths, it is used as supportive treatment for rheumatic diseases in the non-acute stage.
Birch species are deciduous, summer-green trees or shrubs. They are among the very fast and high-growing woody plants and can reach heights of up to 7 meters after just 6 years, and up to 30 meters when fully grown. The birch can reach an age of up to 160 years.
The wood of the wild cherry or sweet cherry experienced enormous popularity during the Biedermeier period. Back then, as people withdrew into their own four walls due to political oppression in many European countries, they wanted at least one thing: to surround themselves with beautiful things. And cherry wood was an important component of this introspective bourgeois coziness.
Pear wood is a sought-after wood in furniture making due to its color, density, and good polishability. It is hard, heavy, tough, and not very elastic with an average density of 0.74 g/cm³. Pear wood dries slowly and without significant cracking; it is very dimensionally stable in a dry state. When steamed, the natural color of the wood changes from a very light silver-gray to light yellow into a warm, reddish hue. With age, it acquires a very beautiful reddish-brown, amber-like coloration. Despite its hardness, pear wood is very well suited for carving fine details; due to the stone cells, it can be worked in different directions without splintering. Black-stained pear wood was used in cabinetmaking as a substitute for the rarer and more expensive ebony, as it takes stain very well. In this dyed form, it was also often referred to as "German ebony."
The larch, similar to pine and Douglas fir, has a distinct difference between the heartwood area and the sapwood. The latter is light yellow to reddish, the heartwood significantly darker glowing red to reddish-brown. Due to its resistance to weather and chemicals, larch wood is also used in outdoor and special applications in earthworks, bridge and hydraulic engineering, as well as for liquid storage containers (tubs, barrels), cooling towers, and silos. A historical use was the main beams of windmill sails, for which the wood is particularly suitable due to its toughness. In addition, there are foundation piles, masts, railway sleepers, as well as uses in railway, ship, and boat building, wooden playground equipment, floor coverings (decking, wood paving), fences, palisades, and other applications where wood is to be used without impregnation.
For the Greeks and Romans, the beech was a sacred tree. The Celts associated the beech with a wishing tree. Y-shaped beech branches (→ letters) were adorned with wishes and tied to beech trees. Today, it is less mystical properties that are associated with the beech. The wood – especially that of the European beech – is a popular wood for furniture and veneers.
Linden wood is sold as both round timber and sawn timber, but is only available in small quantities. Its main purpose is sculpting, carving, and woodturning. There are no significant differences between the wood of the two linden species native to Central Europe. However, the small-leaved lime is said to have slightly heavier, denser, and harder wood. Linden wood is soft and, with a bulk density of 530 kg/m3 at 12 to 15% moisture content, is a medium-weight native hardwood.
The wood of the sweet chestnut is ring-porous and medium-weight. It has a bulk density (at 15 percent moisture) of 0.63 grams per cubic centimeter. The sapwood is narrow and whitish-yellow. It is clearly demarcated from the brown heartwood. The annual rings are clearly visible. Wood rays are numerous, uniformly structured, single or double-rowed, and reach a height of 15 to 30 cell rows. The wood has a high tannin content of up to 13 percent of its dry weight.
The wood of the walnut tree is a sought-after raw material in furniture and veneer production. It is also popular for turned goods, musical instruments, and – in the form of burl veneer – for expensive dashboards. Boxes and chests made of walnut wood protect their contents from moths due to their tannin-rich wood.
Strong as an oak. This phrase is characteristic of a tree that can live up to 2,000 years. It is more likely that a tree anchored deep in the ground will break than be uprooted.
The black locust was introduced to Europe from Virginia to Paris in the early 17th century by Jean Robin, where two specimens planted by Robin in the Jardin des Plantes and in front of the north facade of the St. Julien-le-Pauvre church not far from Notre-Dame are considered the oldest trees in the city. Due to its attractive flower clusters and pinnate leaves, the common black locust was initially planted as an exotic ornamental shrub in parks. It reached England in 1640, and the first evidence of cultivation in Germany dates back to 1670, where it was planted in the Berlin Lustgarten. It was known in Italy by 1726.
Alder wood is soft and has a uniform, fine structure. It has a bulk density of 550 kg/m3 at a wood moisture content of 12 to 15%, making it a medium-weight native wood species. The wood is not very strong and not very elastic, and in these properties, it is comparable to linden wood.
Fir wood refers to the wood of firs (genus Abies), which, like spruce, pine, or larch wood, is a type of softwood. In Europe and large parts of Northern Asia, this term refers almost exclusively to the wood of the silver fir (Abies alba), and more rarely the North American grand fir (Abies grandis).
The wood of the elm is called "Rüster." Thus, elm refers only to the standing tree, not the cut wood. The elm is a heartwood tree. The ring-porous wood of the wych elm has three zones that follow the annual rings: a yellowish-white sapwood, a similarly light heartwood, and a pale brown to reddish core.
The mountain spruce is considered a versatile wood and is very common in local forests. It also has low requirements for its location and grows in the mountains as well. Mountain spruce wood is of very high quality and can be used in many ways!
This coniferous tree only grows at high altitudes and under the most difficult conditions, freely exposed to the harsh forces of nature. The adverse living conditions boost the life energy of the Swiss stone pine. And it stores precisely this power in its wood – in the form of essential oils. With careful processing, stone pine wood passes its wonderful, incomparably aromatic scent on to us.
The wood of the hornbeam is white to grayish-white, which earned it the name "white beech" in contrast to the reddish wood of the European beech. There are no color differences between sapwood and heartwood. The wood is uniformly structured, and annual rings are difficult to recognize. Hornbeam wood is very hard and heavy; it is harder than that of the beech and the oak (Brinell hardness 36 N/mm²).
The wood of the wild service tree (also known as Swiss pear) is one of the hardest European woods and therefore very valuable. In processing, it is tough and simultaneously elastic, as well as fine-fibered and dense. When fresh, the look is light with a velvety surface, often referred to as silk wood; the wood darkens to a reddish – darker reddish-yellow to reddish-brown – tone. In furniture making, it is primarily used for exclusive furniture with high demands on quality and design. Due to its high hardness, it is also ideal as parquet flooring. Products made from wild service wood.
The ash is among the mystical trees. In Norse mythology, it represents the world tree. For the Greeks, ash trees were the bringers of fire to humans after Zeus had taken it from them. Prometheus brought it back to them, ignited from a piece of ash wood.
