Buying a Pine Sideboard Vs An Oak Sideboard
Everybody knows that oak is a great wood, and the popularity of the oak sideboard attests to this common knowledge. The pine sideboard is not as popular because of people’s perceptions of pine being an inferior material, but here the perception can often be unfounded. While it’s true that pine is a softwood and is not as strong as oak, it is also true that pine usually does just fine as furniture. After all, we don’t usually subject furniture to enough abuse to break it, so we don’t need to worry much about its strength past a certain point. Once this is understood, it becomes easier to appreciate the virtues of pine, of which there are many.
Not all pine sideboards are made equally, and here we will talk about the Mexican pine sideboard (also known as New Mexican, Southwestern, or Santa Fe styles). The region of the Southwestern United States/Mexico is known for the beauty and purity of its desert landscape as well as its long history and people. There is much romance and magic associated with the region, at least one part of which is known as “The Land of Enchantment”. The furniture making tradition that has emerged here has, not surprisingly, also been the object of much love and admiration. Due to the resources available in the area, most of it was made in pine. The result is that we now have one of the finest styles of pine furniture in the world, and it looks best when made in pine, not in oak or some other hardwood.
Such is the timelessness of the design of this style of solid pine sideboard that modern and antique pine sideboard designs are still quite similar in many cases. There is a sense of rustic refinement with many designs that can be a breath of fresh air if all one has seen is stuffy antique oak sideboards. While modern designs in oak can be quite pleasing, some of the more traditional ones tend to be very large and ponderous. It’s rare to find a giant oversized design in pine, however, and even mass produced articles like the Corona pine sideboard have a look that is accessible to many people.