Modern Homes Designs

The bed we sleep on is quite possibly one of the earliest pieces of furniture. The original beds used by our primitive ancestors were little more than leaves or straw piled up on the ground. But once they learned to work with tools, they placed these leaves on top of stone shelves so that they could sleep out of the draft. Today, we sleep on top of wooden beds made of beech, pine, oak and other wood substitutes. Not only that, but other pieces of furniture have joined our beds in the bedroom.

Modern furniture is mainly made from plywood and/or fiberboard. Partly, this is because real wood has become very expensive. But another reason is that wood substitutes like plywood and fiberboard do not last as long as real wood even though they look just as solid. This enables furniture manufacturers to sell more beds and wardrobes and make more money.

One of the earliest woods used for furniture was oak. Oak is a hardwood that is extremely hard and strong. It is also resistant to insects, fungus and rot. Not only was it used to make furniture, it was also used to build large ships. Oak is famous for its toughness, and we can still find antique oak bedroom furniture in use through many generations of a family.

But by the mid-1600s, too many oak trees had been cut down, and not enough oak was left to build furniture for the common man. Besides that, oak was a hardwood and difficult to work. With the increase in the numbers of the middle class, there was money to be made by selling cheap furniture to the masses. The furniture makers turned to softwoods like beech. These types of wood were easier to work, so their productivity greatly increased.

In the mid-1800s, pine overtook beech as the most popular wood for furniture. In the United States and other countries with sizeable forests of cherry wood, this too vied with pine for dominance. Both of these woods, when freshly cut and used to build furniture, released a pleasant fragrance. Unfinished furniture made from pine and cherry wood quickly became popular.

Today, fast-growing softwoods like pine are also grown in plantations. Quality pine bedroom furniture made of wood grown in plantations is more ecologically friendly than most wood substitutes even though they are more expensive. Another advantage is that solid pine wood lasts much longer than cheap alternatives like plywood and fiberboard.

Although alternatives to wood like plywood and fiberboard are “green” in the sense that they make use of low quality wood that would otherwise be burnt or thrown away, the problem is that they also need extensive use of increasingly scarce petroleum compounds. In the case of plywood, this is the glue (made from petroleum products) that is used to stick the thin sheets of wood together. In the case of fiberboard, it is the hydrocarbon-based resin that is used to hold the powdered wood together when it is being formed.

As you can see, we have come a long way since our primitive ancestors. They slept on the ground in a pile of leaves or straw, and now we are sleeping on top of wooden beds and have other pieces of wooden furniture in our bedrooms.