Maple Table | Maple Dining Table | Loewen Design Studios
At Loewen Design Studios we work with many different woods. One of those is Maple. Maple is an excellent hardwood for wood tables and is very plentiful in the northeastern parts of North America. Its clean, tight grain has been valued by furniture makers for centuries.
We’ve worked with many types of Maple - each with its own different characteristics. We’ve enjoyed working with Ambrosia Maple and White Maple, but Rock Maple is our favorite.
Rock Maple
Rock Maple is one of the hardest woods we’ve worked with, and the hardest we would use for a Maple dining table. It’s a solid, very hard wood, like a rock. To damage Rock Maple you kind of have to try. About 8 years ago, we knew it was time to change the laminate counters in our kitchen and we thought that Rock Maple might work well - we have not been sorry at all.
Rock Maple has a 1,450 Janka Hardness rating, comfortably above even White Oak. It doesn’t scratch easily, it doesn’t dent easily, it’s very resilient, even when you compare it to other hardwoods. It has an even, fine texture and a generally straight grain with some waves to it. Rock Maple tables will cost roughly the same as Walnut.
Ambrosia Maple
Ambrosia Maple (which is often known as Wormy Maple) is an excellent hardwood that has been adopted by many furniture builders to make rustic / mill sawn wood furniture pieces. The maple trees had the ambrosia beetle travel through them while they were still standing, leaving a very small hole behind them.
The wood around these small holes or tunnels has some staining marks in the grain that are very similar to Spalted Maple. Some people love this look which is quite unique from one tree and one plank to the next. Ambrosia Maple is rated at 950 on the Janka Hardness scale and because of that, this Maple table will stand up well to everyday use.
White Maple
White Maple is an excellent hardwood with a tight grain which provides you with a clean, consistent look. No striation marks and no tiny holes. A little more expensive than Ambrosia Maple, White Maple gives you a solid surface that will always clean up easily. We often use this wood for building Scandinavian style dining tables, with a light finish for a clean, bright look. White Maple also is rated at 950 on the Janka Hardness scale, making it a good selection for your dining or kitchen table.
Why is Rock Maple our Favorite?
Almost everyone will only buy a few kitchen or dining tables in their lifetime. And yet, these pieces of furniture get used (and abused) every day as we eat, work and play around on them. Often located near the heart of your home, these tables can play a central role in your family's life.
Many of our customers have small people in their lives, whether they are children or grandchildren, and a common concern is how Maple table will stand up to the abuse our children will dish out. While we can’t dream up what all this Maple dining table may have to stand up to, we can comfortably say that a Rock Maple dining or kitchen table will stand up better than almost any other.
At the end of the day, we love Rock Maple and we’re sure you will too. If you’re interested in creating your own custom Maple dining table, contact our team today and we will happily walk you through the process.