Furniture made of solid cherry wood is considered some of the finest furniture available in the world today. That's because cherry is a beautiful, stable hardwood that develops a rich reddish brown patina over the years and just keeps getting more gorgeous as time goes by.
I'm always saddened when customers tell us they've been searching in their local areas and online for solid cherry furniture and they haven't been able to find the real thing.
What's happened is that the larger furniture companies (like Bassett, Lane, Broyhill, Thomasville, Ethan Allen and others) have opted for low-price over quality in their furniture designs. They typically use cheaper, lower quality woods, stain them and then call them "cherry". The worst part is that the stains don't even remotely look like real cherry wood, but this cheap furniture is so plentiful that people often think that stain is the actual color of cherry. At Vermont Woods Studios Furniture it breaks our craftsmans' hearts when people ask them to stain solid cherry furniture to make it match existing fake "cherry" furniture that's in their homes.
Here are some examples of solid cherry wood furniture. You'll notice there are varying degrees of color. Natural cherry wood starts out a light pinkish color and darkens over time with exposure to light. Eventually it ripens to a stunning reddish brown. You can hasten the darkening process by oiling the wood often.
If you're shopping for cherry furniture and you have any doubts about the wood, be sure to ask the salesperson if it's authentic cherry wood. Ask where it's from too. The best cherry in the world is grown in Pennsylvania and West Virginia and because we don't have much cherry in Vermont, that's where we get ours from. More on cherry wood furniture here.
