source: Casa Madera Floors

Wood Veneer is a thin slice of wood that is typically glued onto core panels to produce flat surfaces such as doors, cabinets, and furniture. Veneers can be great for aesthetics; it’s essentially thin slices of exotic wood over top of cheaper materials. However, you sacrifice quality when choosing veneer over solid wood.  Veneer easily loses it’s gilded touch when it begins to crack, chip, warp and bubble after even just a few years of use.

If you want your furniture to last, and withstand constant use, solid wood is a wise choice.  It can be repeatedly sanded and repaired over the course of its lifetime and is constructed out of solid high quality lumber, instead of a composite of lower-grade lumber and an attractive outer wood. In order to spot veneer work when you’re buying your next piece of wood furniture look for these dead giveaways from Dovetail:

Banding – Is there a side panel or band of wood in the grain facing the opposing direction of the rest of the piece? If so, you’re looking at veneer banding, which is susceptible to peeling and cracking at the edges of drawers and tables.

Bottoms and Backs – Check the rarely seen sides of a piece, such as the base and the back (if there is one).  If the wood doesn’t match, you’re looking at veneer.

Grain direction – this is probably the easiest to spot, if the grain doesn’t go through all surfaces of the item, you’ve got at least partial veneer on your furniture.

Make sure to invest in well-made, high-quality solid wood furniture if you’d like durable pieces that will stay with you for generations. Veneer may have a nice exterior, but what’s on the inside is what truly counts.