Wood is one of those things we often take for granted – we just accept that it “is” without really understanding how it came to be that way. But our ethically made furniture has a beautiful story to tell.
You know the basic journey well enough: a tree grows and from that tree, wood is taken to create paper, clothing, and so much more. But there’s so much more that goes into the life of a tree that happens well beneath the surface.
If we look at the ingredients (yes, wood is made up of ingredients the same way your favourite dessert is!), they’re not what you might expect.
Sunlight, water, and air.
That’s it!
A light wave, a liquid, and a gas combine to form a solid we call wood.
You might be staring at your screen, maybe scratching your head because how on earth is that possible? The short answer: Mother Nature is a miraculous force.
For those interested in the long answer, we promise it’s worth the read!
Thanks to the power of photosynthesis, bits of sunlight pass through a green leaf (which, if you remember your high school biology, is green because it has chlorophyll). The sunlight energises the chlorophyll, giving it the ability to combine water and carbon dioxide to form sugar glucose. This becomes the building block for the majestic creatures we call trees.
Glucose forms long chains called cellulose, which, in turn, combine to form elementary fibres. It’s a long process, we know, but it’s remarkable, so stick with us! Those elementary fibres group together and become microfibrils, which are considered the building blocks of xylem. That’s just a fancy word for the single cell of wood. It then takes years, sometimes centuries, for these cells combine, using an incredible amount of sunlight, water, and air to form the trees that we at Homewood use to create ethically made furniture!
And each reaction in every leaf on every tree across the globe is completely unique!
When the differences are grouped from day to day, season to season, year to year – we get a story. A story of a tree’s life that is being written every second while it is alive. Every bit of the wood grain that you see in front of you is telling you a small part of its life history. It is telling you what it experienced at that point in time.
This is why we at Homewood ALWAYS respect and regard this miracle material with such admiration. It’s why we will always ensure we use it responsibly and sustainably and try to use every part of the tree – even if it does not look perfect – because it still forms part of that specific tree’s history and story. Removing it for pure cosmetic purposes is… unthinkable
So, look at that wood in front of you and just appreciate what it’s been through to get there, it really is a miracle!