Materials · September 1, 2026 · 7 min read
Meet the 17 hardwoods we build with
From bone-white maple to jet-black ebony — a plain-language guide to every wood in the builder and what each one is good for.
Every piece in the builder can be swapped to any of seventeen hardwoods. Here's what each one actually looks like in a finished wallet.
The light woods
Maple is our brightest — a clean, almost white surface with a tight grain. It's the default sky in most designs because it makes everything in front of it pop. Birch sits just behind it, slightly warmer and a little more figured. Ash is pale with a strong open grain, which reads as texture from arm's length.
The mid-tones
Cherry starts a light salmon and darkens to a rich reddish brown with age — one of the few woods that genuinely improves in your pocket. Sapele is a mahogany relative with a ribbon stripe that shifts as you tilt it. Hickory is tough and blond-to-tan. White oak runs pale gold with a distinct ray fleck. Cedar is soft, aromatic, and the warmest of the group.
The darks
Walnut is the classic — chocolate brown, straight grained, forgiving in any design. Wenge is darker and coarser, almost charcoal with black lines. Ebony is the deepest wood we stock and the one we reserve for silhouettes, night skies and outlines.
The colors
Padauk comes out of the shop a startling orange-red. Bloodwood is a deeper, truer red that holds its color better. Purpleheart is exactly what it sounds like — genuinely violet, no dye. Zebrawood is pale gold with bold dark stripes and works best in larger shapes where the pattern can be seen.
Picking a palette
The single most useful trick: choose woods that are clearly different in lightness, not just in color. Two mid-tones side by side blur together at arm's length. A light sky, a mid foreground and a dark silhouette will read from across the room.
Describe it. We draw it in wood.
Type any scene and watch it take shape as a real hardwood inlay design.
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