A Definitely Fun Thing I’ll Always Do Again

Buying wood is transformative if you do it right.

When I built Shaker-style furniture for friends back in the day, while living in Pasadena, CA, I shopped at a place with an ambitious store name full of superlatives: “Master Building Super Home Center.” It was a fancily named Ace Hardware store that franchises itself out to local entrepreneurs. The McDonald’s of wood, home goods, and hardware. Its lumber options were pine, oak, cedar, and poplar. Oak was expensive and unforgiving to work with. Cedar was for fencing and was cheap. For an outdoor project, you could go crazy with cedar. The pine was construction-grade, full of knots. That’s what I went with, because knotty pine was having a moment in the sun as “shabby chic” or Boho or Bohemian. God bless the 1990s.

The wood at my local Ace Hardware-esque home center was no different from what is available at any Lowe’s or Home Depot today.

Here on the opposite coast, I discovered something way more charming. Not that they don’t exist on the West Coast. They do, I just didn’t know about them. Are these places more expensive? Yes, maybe, possibly not. We’re talking about premium wood species at these places, more for cabinetry than construction - walnut, maple, cherry, sapele, white oak, and some exotics. But, since it doesn’t come thoroughly milled on all four sides like home center lumber, you can probably get more red or white oak pound for pound here than at the home center. Are these places better suited to good woodworking? Yesssss???. I mean, it’s not like good wood equals good craftsmanship. But good craftsmanship without good wood amounts to little. Lastly, are these purveyors of fine hardwoods more amenable to a well-lived life? Yes, they 100% are, and here’s why.

I’m not sure what to call them. “Lumberyards” sounds diminutive. More like “Purveyors of Fine Woods,” which is not to say they’re fancy. They’re not. But they can be a little intimidating the first time you go, a feeling that quickly abates by just how damn nice the people are. Imagine walking into the Louvre in Paris knowing next to nothing about art, and someone who works there (you have no clue about their role or title) is like, Hey there, come take a look. Touch it if you want. Take that insanely famous painting off the wall and walk around with it for a while. Jump on it. Sniff it. It’s all good. In these hyper-democratic spaces, and for obvious reasons, the only rules apply to the power machinery. Employees only. But they’re more than happy to cut your wood to size, as long as you leave them with at least four feet of board. Most come in 10’, 12’, or 16’ lengths, so that’s rarely a problem.