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Wood is one of the most sought after materials in both indoor and outdoor furniture. There is a timeless elegance to wood that no other material on earth can match. Not only is this material a beautiful option when it comes to furniture making, it is also a very practical choice for many reasons. It also makes sense that you would likely choose different types of woods for indoor and outdoor furnishings. After all, not all woods are created equal.
For outdoor furnishing, Teak has for a long time been the most popular selection of choice. There is however, a new kid on that furniture block that is beginning to make quite a name for itself. Shorea wood is actually stronger and heavier than teak although it is often priced considerably lower because of it's much more abundant availability. Properly cared for, Shorea will last about 50 years, which makes it an excellent choice for the rigors to which outdoor furniture is often put through.
There are several things you can do in order to care for your outdoor furniture that is made from the wood species Shorea. The first thing you can do in order to maximize the life span of your Shorea furniture is applying Teak oil once or twice a year. I personally recommend twice a year, especially if you are planning to leave your Shorea outdoor furniture out year round and exposed to the various temperatures and moisture levels that this brings along with it. Another thing you could do to improve the longevity is to bring your Shorea furniture indoors during extreme weather (particularly in cooler winter climates).
The laws of supply and demand have for quite some time driven the prices of Teak higher and higher. Shorea offers a beautiful, durable, and versatile alternative without the hefty price tag that comes along with Teak furniture. If you can get the same value for less, I really can think of few reasons to pay the extra expense. I understand, probably more than most what it means to truly appreciate a beautiful piece of wooden furniture, you can enjoy that deep appreciation with Shorea just as you can with Teak. There are very few differences between the two as far as the woods durability goes, and quite a few as far as beauty as well. The big difference however is that there is simply more Shorea available and will continue to be as long as the conservation efforts that have worked well to protect this wonderful wood over the last few decades remain in place.
If you are truly hoping to be environmentally friendly in your choices for wood, choose woods that will last longer. While Shorea and Teak have about the same life span, there are many other woods that have a much shorter life span than these woods. This means that you will, as long as you are replacing this furniture, go through more natural resources in the long run when using these woods. The longer the wood furniture you choose lasts, the longer that wood has to renew itself within nature. A true conservationist will have a great appreciation for that fact.
Teak will always be a premium wood and as such will always command the premium price tag, as far as woods, go the next best thing (and a far greater value per dollar spent) is Shorea. Shorea. Shorea has many of the same wonderful features of Teak with only a few drawbacks (among those are the fact that it will crack more than Teak, although with proper care this can be minimized) that can normally be eliminated by taking extra care and oiling your furniture with a high quality Teak or wood oil twice a year as well as moving your outdoor furniture indoors during those long cold, wet, dreary, winter months.
In addition to its strength and density, Shorea is also well known for its ability to resist decay, mold, fungus, rot, and infestation by bugs. These are all wonderful things to have in furniture that is designed to spend most or all of its time in the great outdoors. If you are considering a wood species for your outdoor furniture, I hope you haven't grown too tired of reading all the literature about all those other species to take time to give serious consideration to how Shorea could fit into your lawn and garden plans.
