Understanding Wood Movement: How We Design Furniture That Lasts Generations

At Frailey Woodworks, we often describe our custom furniture as "heirloom quality"—pieces designed to serve not just the original owner but future generations as well. While many factors contribute to furniture longevity, perhaps none is more fundamental than properly accounting for wood movement in the design and construction process.

Wood, unlike manufactured materials, remains alive in a sense even after harvesting. It continues to interact with its environment, expanding and contracting with changes in humidity and temperature. This natural behavior—beautiful in its connection to the living world but challenging in its unpredictability—requires thoughtful design solutions that many mass-produced furniture pieces simply ignore.

The Science Behind the Movement

To understand our construction methods, it helps to first understand what happens within wood as seasons change. Wood is hygroscopic, meaning it naturally absorbs and releases moisture in response to environmental conditions. This moisture exchange causes dimensional changes that vary dramatically depending on how the wood was cut relative to the tree's growth rings.

Tangential movement (perpendicular to the growth rings) is typically twice as great as radial movement (along the radius of the growth rings), while longitudinal movement (along the grain length) is negligible. In practical terms, a solid wood tabletop might expand and contract by 1/4 inch or more across its width through seasonal humidity cycles, while maintaining virtually the same length. If these natural movements are restricted by rigid construction methods, the wood responds the only way it can—by splitting, warping, or breaking joints.

Thoughtful Solutions in Our Construction Process

Over years of building custom record player consoles and other fine furniture, we've refined numerous techniques that work with wood's natural properties rather than fighting against them.

One of our most fundamental techniques is using plywood for specific components where cross-grain construction is unavoidable. The back panels of our cabinets are a prime example. When a solid wood back is glued to perpendicular case sides, the different directional movements create significant stress at the glue joints. By using plywood—which has alternating grain directions in its layered construction and thus remains dimensionally stable—we eliminate this stress point without compromising the furniture's structural integrity or visual appeal from the front and sides.

For table and console tops, rigid glue connections to the base would inevitably lead to splitting as the top expands and contracts across its width. Instead, we employ specialized furniture-grade connection hardware with threaded inserts and bolts that create strong mechanical bonds while allowing slight movement. These connectors serve multiple purposes: they permit the natural expansion and contraction of the top, they allow for disassembly if the piece ever needs to be moved through narrow doorways, and they provide exceptional strength for daily use.

Throughout our case construction, we rely heavily on the Festool Domino system, which creates floating mortise and tenon joints. Unlike rigid dowels or biscuits, these floating tenons provide significant structural strength while allowing for slight movement. This joinery approach provides dramatically stronger connections than basic butt joints while still acknowledging wood's dynamic nature.

Large solid wood doors present particular challenges for wood movement, as their width magnifies the total dimensional change. In pieces like our Hemingway cabinet, we address this challenge through louvered door designs composed of frames with vertical slats rather than solid panels. This approach significantly reduces the amount of wood that can move in any one component, creating more stable doors that continue to function smoothly regardless of seasonal changes.

Some of our more complex pieces, such as our hand-powered sit-stand desk (the Everyday Desk), present unique challenges because their moving parts require precise tolerances to function properly. In these cases, we incorporate additional design allowances and carefully select and orient wood grain to minimize movement in critical dimensions. The result is mechanical furniture that works smoothly throughout seasonal changes.

Learning from Experience

Our approach to wood movement hasn't developed in isolation but through practical experience and, occasionally, learning from challenges. Early in our furniture-making journey, we had to repair a piece where a solid wood back panel had created enough stress to cause splitting. This experience reinforced our commitment to using plywood for back panels, a practice that has since become standard in our construction.

Such experiences remind us that woodworking is both science and art—requiring both technical knowledge and the humility to adapt when wood behaves in unexpected ways. Each piece we build informs future designs, creating an evolving body of knowledge that benefits every client who commissions our work.

Explaining the Invisible Challenge

Here's how we think about it: Designing for wood movement is similar to the foundation of a home. You don't see it daily, but it fundamentally determines whether the structure will last for decades or develop serious problems within years. Just as you wouldn't want a home built without proper foundation engineering, furniture made without proper allowance for wood movement has a fundamentally compromised lifespan.

When we build a record player console or dining table, we're not designing just for how it will look in your space today, but for how it will function for decades to come. The extra thought and care that goes into accommodating wood's natural properties ensures that your grandchildren could potentially enjoy the same piece in their homes someday.

This long-term approach to furniture design connects directly to sustainability. When furniture is built with proper allowance for wood movement, it requires fewer repairs, never needs replacement due to structural failure, and generally remains useful for generations rather than years. In a world increasingly concerned with resource conservation, we believe creating one piece that serves for a century represents far better stewardship than producing multiple disposable pieces over the same timespan.

At Frailey Woodworks, we believe that properly addressing wood movement isn't an optional upgrade or special feature—it's a fundamental requirement for furniture worthy of being called "heirloom quality." Every piece we design, from record player consoles to dining tables to storage pieces, incorporates these principles as a matter of course.

We invite you to explore our collection or discuss a custom commission with the confidence that your furniture is designed not just for today's enjoyment but for generations of use. Understanding and accommodating wood movement isn't just a technical consideration—it's a philosophy that values longevity, respects natural materials, and honors the relationship between people and their most meaningful possessions. It's furniture built not just for a lifetime, but for a legacy.