A Little Bit About Wood

Wood is our oldest furniture friend, along with stone, and we’ve been enjoying it for thousands of years! This means there are a lot of ‘knowns’ about wood, it doesn’t pull any surprises out of the bag! Here you’ll find some general information about the wood used to make your furniture as pre-cursory to the care guide for your furniture!

The trees used hail directly from the forests of Sweden; they are grown for around 60 years and come solely from FSC Certified positively regenerating forests, so for every one tree felled, two are planted in place. This does in fact offset the carbon emissions for the entire country of Sweden, every year!

The climate of Sweden and the altitudes where the Redwood is grown increase the density and strength of the wood during the growing process; Swedish Redwood also contains natural chemicals which make it resistant against changes in moisture. The growth techniques and chemicals are natural, but not a design of nature of which the purposed end-game is for it to be produced into furniture. This means there is a limit to how far the strength/density/chemical make-up of the wood can cope in a modern interior environment - so it is important to take note of the care guides available on the Artemis London website, these are scientifically based.

Science is your friend here and makes taking care of your wooden furniture easy! This is where the knowledge and ‘knowns’ of wooden furniture kick in, everything is known about it!!!

Once the trees are fully grown, the moisture content of the tree may be as low as 40% or as high as 180% - the tree then can contain 1.8kg (litres) of water for every 1kg of wood fibre. Before the wood is touched for being made into furniture it is kiln dried to 10% moisture content.

Kiln drying is a process whereby the water inside the wood is extracted out of the wood to bring it to an appropriate moisture content to be used indoors. Without this kiln drying process, the wild and wonderful variety of trees of even the same species would result in a wild and not so wonderful reaction in your space after being placed indoors! The overarching concept of keeping your furniture exactly as you receive it is to keep the moisture content of the wood exactly the same. This is first done by regulating your space with tips and tricks and regulating the wood with tips and tricks….have a read of the furniture care page.