Pros and cons of hickory wood cabinets

Hickory wood is one of the most traditional choices for carpentry and furniture in American homes. In today’s blog post, we investigate why – and find out the pros and cons of hickory wood cabinets for your kitchen refit or bathroom renovation.

What is hickory wood?

Hickory is a tall, strong tree. Although it grows all over the world, there are more native varieties of hickory in the United States than anywhere else. And even the word “hickory” comes from the Native American word for hickory in the Algonquian or Powhatan languages.

Hickory wood comes in a range of natural shades, from blondish-white to dark brown and even a deep red-brown. It has a close, straight grain, but hickory is coarse. It usually contains natural knots and twists in the grain. Some people find those beautiful; others prefer a wood with a more regular grain.

Pros and cons of hickory wood

The first thing to know about hickory wood is that it is exceptionally tough. It’s hard, heavy, and ultra shock-resistant. Back in the day, it was even used to make baseball bats!

So if you’re looking for a wood which will stand up to plenty of use, then you can rely on hickory. It also doesn’t require much maintenance. Once you have your hickory kitchen cabinets installed, they’ll pretty much take care of themselves.

However, hickory wood can’t take much humidity. So it’s probably not a good choice for bathroom cabinets. It is possible to have hickory flooring in your bathroom, but it will have to be engineered to cope with changing humidity levels.

Overall, hickory is a great choice if you enjoy a natural look and want to buy local, native-grown wooden cabinets. But you’ll need to factor in the cost and installation time for such a heavy natural wood.

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