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Choosing lumber for a custom woodworking project comes down to matching the board to the part you will cut: its visible area, clear-cutting size, service conditions, and required stability. For most indoor furniture, No. 1 Common hardwood is the value starting point; reserve FAS or FAS One Face for long, wide, clear parts. Buy wood that will reach the moisture content of its destination, not merely stock stamped “kiln-dried,” and choose species for hardness, movement, decay resistance, color, and finishing behavior.
The sequence below turns those principles into a buying specification you can take to a hardwood dealer, sawmill, or home center.
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At a glance
| Name | Best for | Key spec | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| FAS (Firsts and Seconds) | Long, wide, clear tabletops, mouldings, and door parts | 83⅓% clear-face yield; boards about 6 in. wide by 8 ft. long or larger | November 2026 |
| FAS One Face / Selects | One show face, long furniture parts, architectural joinery | FAS face on one side; Selects can be about 4 in. wide by 6 ft. long | November 2026 |
| No. 1 Common | Most cabinet and furniture parts | 66⅔% clear yield; minimum board about 3 in. by 4 ft. | November 2026 |
| No. 2A Common | Short parts, flooring strips, economical solid wood | 50% clear yield; minimum cutting about 3 in. by 2 ft. | November 2026 |
| No. 2B Common | Paint-grade and rustic work | 50% sound-cutting yield; sound knots and other defects may remain | November 2026 |
| Appearance-grade softwood | Painted trim, knotty paneling, light-duty furniture | Select or Premium for clear work; Common grades for tight-knot appearance | November 2026 |
How do I choose lumber for a custom project?
Write a part list before shopping. For every part, note whether the face shows, whether it will be painted or clear-finished, the smallest clear rectangle needed, exposure to water or abrasion, and whether the piece carries a structural load. That list determines species, grade, moisture target, thickness, and how much extra stock to buy.
- Define the parts. Mark show faces, hidden parts, painted components, wet locations, and pieces that must remain one long clear board.
- Choose species. Balance dent resistance, shrinkage, decay resistance, grain, color, machining, and stain behavior. Use less expensive stable wood for hidden components.
- Choose grade from cutting size. No. 1 Common or Selects usually supplies furniture parts efficiently. FAS is justified when a part must stay long and wide and clear.
- Specify form and thickness. State rough thickness in quarters (4/4, 5/4, 8/4), sawing orientation, surfaced or rough condition, and whether you need random or fixed widths and lengths.
- Set moisture for the destination. Use the Wood Handbook installation ranges below and verify boards with a moisture meter.
- Plan milling and waste. Rough stock requires flattening and thicknessing; add 10–20% for defects, matching, and mistakes.
- Inspect every board. Reject twist, severe bow, checks, splits, and loose knots; match color and grain for glue-ups.
What is the difference between hardwood and softwood grades?
Hardwood grades predict how much clear wood can be cut from a board. Softwood structural grades predict allowable strength and defect limits. Confusing the systems is a common procurement mistake; a No. 2 spruce-pine-fir stud is ordinary framing lumber, not a damaged “furniture-grade” board.
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The American Hardwood Export Council grading guide explains the hardwood principle: “The grade name simply designates the percentage of clear wood in the board, not the overall appearance.” A knotty-looking board can still meet a Common grade if enough clear cuttings can be laid out. Conversely, a pale, attractive board may fail a high grade because its clear pieces are too short or narrow.
Softwood dimension lumber follows the American Softwood Lumber Standard (PS 20) and agency rules administered through accredited graders. A structural stamp can identify the agency, mill, species group, grade, and moisture designation. Use that chain when a workbench frame, stair component, or built-in is genuinely structural or code-regulated. For ordinary furniture parts, a structural stamp is not a substitute for straight, dry, appearance-grade stock.
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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteSoftwood boards sold for visible trim use a separate appearance ladder: B and Better or C Select for clear work, D Select where defects will be painted, and No. 1 or No. 2 Common when tight knots are part of the design.
Which hardwood grade should I buy?
Buy the grade that produces the smallest clear pieces your cut list requires. FAS pays for clear length that is wasted when every board is crosscut into short cabinet parts; No. 1 Common often gives the best usable yield for furniture.
| Grade | Rule of thumb | Clear or sound yield | Typical application |
|---|---|---|---|
| FAS | Board about 6 in. wide and 8 ft. long minimum; both faces meet the grade | At least 83⅓% (10/12) clear face; minimum clear cutting 4 in. × 5 ft. or 3 in. × 7 ft. | Long moulding, wide tabletops, door frames, large clear panels |
| FAS One Face (F1F) | One face is FAS, the reverse is No. 1 Common | FAS yield on the better face | One-sided show work; often shipped with FAS |
| Selects | Like F1F, but boards may be about 4 in. wide and 6 ft. long | FAS face on one side | Long furniture parts where narrower boards are acceptable |
| No. 1 Common | Board about 3 in. × 4 ft. minimum | 66⅔% (8/12) clear; minimum cutting 3 in. × 3 ft. or 4 in. × 2 ft. | Cabinet components, most furniture parts, plank and strip flooring |
| No. 2A Common | About 3 in. × 4 ft. minimum | 50% clear; minimum cutting about 3 in. × 2 ft. | Economical short parts and flooring |
| No. 2B Common | Same yield as 2A, but cuttings need only be sound | 50% sound cuttings; sound knots and stain are permitted | Paint-grade, rustic, and character work |
| No. 3A Common | Utility grade | 33⅓% clear; minimum cutting about 3 in. × 2 ft. | Crates, pallets, utility and heavily charactered work |
| No. 3B Common | Lowest common yield | About 25% sound cuttings; minimum about 1½ in. × 2 ft. | Very short pieces and utility work |
FAS, F1F, and Selects are commonly marketed as “Face and Better” or “Sel and Better.” No. 1 Common and Selects may be sold as “No. 1 Common and Better,” while No. 2A and No. 2B are often combined as “No. 2 Common.” A shipment’s mix matters: F1F is frequently bundled with FAS, and there is no universal percentage of F1F in that bundle, so ask the supplier.
Grades are measured from the poorer face except for the F1F and Select exceptions. Surface measure is the board’s face area in square feet, rounded to a whole number. Color is not part of NHLA grade. If you need white hard-maple sapwood, heartwood-only walnut, or a particular white-oak color, specify a color sort separately.
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Is No. 1 Common really enough for furniture?
Usually, yes. Its 66⅔% clear yield and shorter minimum cuttings fit rails, stiles, drawer parts, shelves, and table components better than FAS. Clear wood recovered from a Common board is the same clear wood as that from FAS; it is simply distributed in shorter or narrower pieces.
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FAS becomes economical when a part cannot be shortened, joined, or rearranged: a single-piece tabletop, long crown moulding, uninterrupted door stile, or wide architectural trim. A higher grade can cost more than the extra clear wood it yields when your cut list consists of small rectangles.
Relative prices vary by species and market. One 2024 dealer illustration placed F1F or Select at roughly 85–90% of FAS, No. 1 Common at 65–70%, No. 2 Common at 45–55%, and No. 3 Common at 30–40%; these are yard-level relationships, not a current national price list. Retail ranges reported in 2024 were approximately $4–$6 per board foot for red-oak No. 1 Common and $6–$9 for FAS, $8–$12 and $12–$18 for walnut, and lower for poplar. Request a current quote and ask whether tally is net or gross.
What moisture content should wood have before indoor furniture?
For interior furniture, flooring, trim, and related woodwork in most of the United States, the USDA Forest Products Laboratory’s Wood Handbook Table 13-2 recommends an average of 8% moisture content, with individual pieces from 6–10%. The dry Southwest target is about 6% (4–9% individual); damp, warm coastal interiors are about 11% (8–13% individual). Test at least 10% of each item to estimate a realistic average.
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|---|---|---|
| Interior work, most U.S. locations | 8% | 6–10% |
| Dry Southwest interiors | 6% | 4–9% |
| Damp, warm coastal interiors | 11% | 8–13% |
| Exterior work, most U.S. locations and damp coast | 12% | 9–14% |
| Exterior work, dry Southwest | 9% | 7–12% |
These are installation targets, not permanent properties. Wood is hygroscopic: as ForestSource explains, “Wood is hygroscopic — it gives up and takes on water until it reaches equilibrium with the surrounding air.” The room’s relative humidity and temperature determine equilibrium moisture content (EMC), so a board dried to 7% can gain moisture in a humid home.
What does kiln-dried mean?
On a structural softwood stamp, KD generally means 19% moisture content or less. KD-HT also indicates heat treatment for pest regulations; it does not mean furniture stock is at 6–8%. Furniture hardwood commonly arrives around 6–8%, but verify the actual pile.
Richard Bergman of the Forest Products Laboratory notes that “General commercial practice is to kiln dry wood for some products, such as flooring and furniture, to a slightly lower moisture content than service conditions demand.” That buffer anticipates moisture gained during shipping and storage. Historical guidance in Research Note FPL-0226 recommended 5–8% for furniture and cabinets; use the regional installation window above for current design decisions.
How do I measure and acclimate lumber?
- Bring a pin-type or pinless meter; both work when set for the species, density, thickness, and temperature corrections. Smart Fog’s Ido Goldstein advises: “Use a moisture meter on the boards before releasing them to machining or assembly.”
- Measure several boards and locations, including the core of thick stock when the meter permits. Surface readings alone can hide a wet interior.
- Compare readings with the destination range, not a generic “kiln-dried” label.
- Store boards stickered with air around all faces in the same controlled shop where they will be machined and assembled. If indoor stock is above 10%, one shop recommendation is to acclimate for one to two weeks, then recheck.
- Keep humidity stable through glue-up. At about 70°F, Wood Handbook Table 4-2 values are approximately 6.2% EMC at 30% RH, 7.7% at 40%, 8.5% at 45%, 9.2% at 50%, and 11.0% at 60% RH.
Do not mill green framing lumber into indoor furniture. If wood is outside the target, condition it before cutting joinery; otherwise joints can open, panels can shrink, and wide tops can cup.
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Which species is best for a table, cabinet, or painted piece?
Species is a performance and appearance choice, not a simple hardness contest. The following side-hardness and green-to-oven-dry shrinkage figures are USDA Wood Handbook data reported by Out of Wood; radial is listed before tangential movement.
| Species | Janka side hardness | Radial / tangential shrinkage | Good fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Northern red oak | 1,290 lbf | 4.0% / 8.6% | Furniture, flooring, millwork; open pores and reddish cast |
| White oak | 1,360 lbf | 5.6% / 10.5% | Furniture, flooring, boats, wet-adjacent work; tyloses improve heartwood decay resistance |
| Hard (sugar) maple | 1,450 lbf | 4.8% / 9.9% | High-wear tops, flooring, cutting boards; can stain unevenly |
| Soft (red) maple | 950 lbf | 4.0% / 8.2% | Similar appearance at lower weight and hardness |
| Black cherry | 950 lbf | 3.7% / 7.1% | Stable, easy machining, furniture and architectural work; darkens with age |
| Black walnut | 1,010 lbf | 5.5% / 7.8% | Clear-finished furniture; decide whether sapwood is part of the design |
| Yellow-poplar | 540 lbf | 4.6% / 8.2% | Painted cabinets, drawer boxes, jigs; streaks can be green, purple, blue, or black |
| White ash | 1,320 lbf | 4.9% / 7.8% | Strong, shock-resistant parts; source responsibly because of emerald ash borer impacts |
| Red alder | 590 lbf | 4.4% / 7.3% | Stable, easy to work, cherry-like appearance |
| True hickories | About 1,810–2,140 lbf | About 7.0–7.7% / 10.5–12.6% | Very tough tool handles and high-impact parts; difficult hand shaping and high drying movement |
| Eastern white pine | 380 lbf | 2.1% / 6.1% | Easy-to-work painted or knotty furniture and panels |
| Quaking aspen | 350 lbf | 3.5% / 6.7% | Light, soft secondary wood and paint base |
| Western red cedar | 350 lbf | 2.4% / 5.0% | Outdoor furniture; decay-resistant heartwood, but knotty and split-prone |
Higher Janka hardness means better dent resistance, not automatically better furniture. Shrinkage, grain, moisture, machining, and finish compatibility can matter more. A clear-finished walnut or cherry piece is chosen for color and stability; white oak is often chosen near water; poplar is economical under paint. As Brad Holden puts it, “use the showy stuff only where it counts.”
Are store species names precise?
Often not. “Maple” can mean sugar maple at 1,450 lbf or red maple at 950 lbf. “Oak” can mean red or white. “Mahogany” may refer to true mahogany or Philippine mahogany (lauan or meranti), which is lighter and softer. “Whitewood” is a trade label rather than one species, and spruce-pine-fir and hem-fir are species groups. Confirm the botanical or accepted trade species when hardness, color, or movement matters.
Should I buy rough lumber or surfaced lumber?
Buy rough lumber when you have a jointer and thickness planer and need maximum control over thickness, flattening, and grain orientation. Buy S4S (surfaced four sides) when you do not have those machines or the available finished thickness suits the design.
Hardwood is sold in rough quarters: 4/4 is nominally 1 inch, 5/4 is 1¼ inches, and 8/4 is 2 inches. Surfaced stock is thinner. Under the NHLA kiln-dried rule, rough stock from 3/8 to 1¾ inches may be 1/16 inch scant; 2-inch-and-thicker stock may be 1/8 inch scant. Design the finished part around the measured board, not the nominal label.
Rough boards cost less per board foot but require flattening, jointing, and thicknessing. S4S boards are convenient but limit you to the mill’s thicknesses, commonly around ¾ inch. A board sold as nominal 1 × 6 softwood is typically about ¾ × 5½ inches; measure before cutting joinery.
How do flatsawn, quartersawn, riftsawn, plywood, and panels differ?
Flatsawn boards are widely available and efficient, but wide pieces move more across their width and are more prone to cupping. Quartersawn stock is more stable across the width and can show prominent ray figure in white oak; riftsawn stock offers consistent vertical grain. Both are scarcer and more expensive. For a wide top, an edge-glued panel or several narrower boards is often safer than one very wide flatsawn board.
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Plywood is usually the best dimensional-stability choice for a cabinet side, partition, or other panel that does not need a solid-wood edge. Its odd number of layers cross grain at right angles. Construction plywood follows PS 1; hardwood and decorative panels follow ANSI/HPVA HP-1, with separate face grades. “¾-inch” sheets can measure less—one retail birch panel example measured 0.703 inch—so measure dados and rabbets. Baltic birch is a specific many-ply product and should not be assumed equivalent to ordinary birch-faced plywood with a poplar core.
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Specialty hardwood dealers and traditional lumberyards usually offer more species, thicknesses, FAS, quartersawn, and 8/4 stock than home centers. Home centers can be practical for picked-in-person poplar, oak, maple, pine, and edge-glued panels, but inventory and quality vary inside one store and one grade.
- Sight down each edge and face. As Holden advises, “Reject boards that twist along their length.”
- Identify warp correctly: cup is across the width, bow along the face, twist is diagonal, and crook is an edge bend.
- Reject severe end checks, splits, loose knots, and wet stock for indoor work.
- Match color and grain before buying boards for a glue-up.
- Put the clearest, straightest boards against the longest parts of your cut list.
- Buy 10–20% extra; highly figured, short, or color-matched work may need more.
- Ask whether board-foot pricing uses net tally after drying or gross/green tally. The AHEC guide notes that kiln-dried lumber sold on gross tally can deliver approximately 7% fewer board feet because of drying shrinkage.
- For random-width and random-length orders, inspect the actual boards whenever possible rather than accepting an unseen special order.
How do I specify an order so the supplier sends the right wood?
State species, thickness, grade, sawing, color, moisture, dimensions, and tally basis. A professional specification might read: “Northern white oak, 4/4 rough, FAS-1F or better, rift and quartersawn, specified color sort, random width and length, kiln-dried to 6–8%, end-coated, net tally.” A hobby order can be simpler, but the logic remains: “FAS white oak” alone does not promise rift grain, sapwood-free color, or 7% moisture.
For a cabinet, specify No. 1 Common hard maple or poplar for solid parts, a stable hardwood plywood for large panels, and the moisture range appropriate to the home. For a painted workbench or utility cabinet, No. 2B common or poplar can reduce cost while allowing sound defects that will disappear under paint. For a clear walnut tabletop, reserve FAS or carefully selected F1F only for boards long and wide enough to remain one-piece; use lower grades for shorter aprons and internal parts.
How were these recommendations selected?
The recommendations follow four decision tests: the part’s required clear-cutting size; the species’ hardness, shrinkage, decay resistance, and finishing behavior; moisture content at the piece’s final location; and the sawing, thickness, and panel form that control movement and yield. Hardwood grade percentages and minimum cuttings come from NHLA-based guides, moisture targets and EMC values from USDA Forest Products Laboratory tables, and species properties from Wood Handbook data reported in the cited lumberyard guide. Price relationships are illustrative and should not be treated as current quotes.
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How long should lumber acclimate before I mill it?
There is no universal number of days because acclimation depends on thickness, airflow, starting moisture, and shop humidity. A common shop recommendation is one to two weeks for indoor stock reading above 10%, followed by measurements on multiple boards until readings stabilize in the destination range.
Can hardwood grade tell me whether a board is strong?
No. NHLA hardwood grades describe clear-wood yield, not structural strength; WoodBin explicitly notes that hardwood grades “do not indicate the strength of the board.” If a component is code-regulated or load-bearing, use an appropriate structural species, grade, and agency stamp instead.
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Is reclaimed lumber graded the same way as new hardwood?
Usually not. Nail holes, checks, patina, and worm tracks are often the reason reclaimed boards are purchased, and sellers may use their own A/B/C/D character scales. Treat those labels as seller-specific and inspect for hidden metal, unstable moisture, and movement.
How much lumber should I add for a complicated glue-up?
Start with 10–20% over the calculated volume, then increase the allowance for figured grain, strict color matching, short parts, or limited local supply. The extra covers defects and layout choices, not a guaranteed yield percentage.
When is an edge-glued panel better than a solid board?
Use an edge-glued panel when a wide, stable top or shelf matters more than a single uninterrupted board. Narrower strips reduce the width each piece must move, which lowers cupping risk compared with one very wide flatsawn board.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long should lumber acclimate before I mill it?
There is no universal number of days because acclimation depends on thickness, airflow, starting moisture, and shop humidity. A common shop recommendation is one to two weeks for indoor stock reading above 10%, followed by measurements on multiple boards until readings stabilize in the destination range.
Can hardwood grade tell me whether a board is strong?
No. NHLA hardwood grades describe clear-wood yield, not structural strength; WoodBin explicitly notes that hardwood grades “do not indicate the strength of the board.” If a component is code-regulated or load-bearing, use an appropriate structural species, grade, and agency stamp instead.
Is reclaimed lumber graded the same way as new hardwood?
Usually not. Nail holes, checks, patina, and worm tracks are often the reason reclaimed boards are purchased, and sellers may use their own A/B/C/D character scales. Treat those labels as seller-specific and inspect for hidden metal, unstable moisture, and movement.
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How much lumber should I add for a complicated glue-up?
Start with 10–20% over the calculated volume, then increase the allowance for figured grain, strict color matching, short parts, or limited local supply. The extra covers defects and layout choices, not a guaranteed yield percentage.
When is an edge-glued panel better than a solid board?
Use an edge-glued panel when a wide, stable top or shelf matters more than a single uninterrupted board. Narrower strips reduce the width each piece must move, which lowers cupping risk compared with one very wide flatsawn board.
