This wood patio made of ipe decking will last well over 100 years.

When you spend money to renovate and improve your home’s exterior by building a patio, what is on your short list of needs?

1. A dependable patio building material?
2. An eco-friendly wood?
3. Wood that you won’t have to replace every few years?
4. How about something that looks really, really good?
5. Choosing the best wood patio material at the best price?

Those are pretty reasonable requests. There are many wood and composite patio materials in the market which say that they answer all those questions. However, since you’ve done your research, you already know that composite materials have way too many issues (let alone recalls) to even be a viable choice. This leaves solid hard wood decking. As a patio material a patio made of hardwood is going to provide you with: more…

Genuine wood decking creates a sanctuary you won't soon forget.

If you found this blog post searching for “Decking Reviews”, congratulations! You’re right to do your research. You might have even read some negative feedback or heard a lot of marketing hype from both hardwood and composite decking companies. Hopefully, this post clears the confusion about which direction to go in and what material to choose for your specific project.

If you’ve ever heard the saying, more…

Wenge flooring has colors that resemble dark chocolate and even espresso coffee.

Wenge is one of the world’s most prized, and yes, expensive hardwoods. It’s scarcity coupled with its rare beauty keep this  exotic hardwood in high demand.

Wenge flooring provides a wonderful contrast especially in transitional and contemporary design styles. When you see this exotic hardwood in person, you’ll notice the dark brown colors close and fine black veins and thin whitish bands that give wenge wood a very attractive appearance. People with light colored furniture or brightly lit rooms and light colored walls often consider this African hardwood flooring option for their home or business.

What’s it like to work with Wenge wood?

Wenge works pretty well with machine equipment and has  medium blunting effect on cutters. It has a natural resistance to abrasion  and shock loads. These advantages make it a great choice for flooring.

Look no further than the Advantage Trim & Lumber online hardwood store if you’re wondering where you can buy Wenge.

Or, you can always call us directly:

Learn how to Prevent Problems and Future Decking Maintenance

The best way to prevent decking problems is to ensure that your deck was installed correctly in the first place.

Here are five crucial steps that will prolong the life of your deck:

1) Buy decking that is premium grade. When shopping for exotic hardwoods like ipe, it’s important to know the difference between premium/clear grade and common grade.

• Common/Select Grade – Contains sap wood and visible knots & worm holes. Common grade also can be poorly milled (called hit and miss planing). Common grade also has a huge color variance from very light blond to almost black wood.
• Premium/Clear – Best grade, period. All heart and no sapwood. Zero knots, or worm holes. Carefully milled material which highlights the well-blended colors with some boards showing their natural accents. more…

After such a brutal winter for many of us, deck maintenance is on the minds of many homeowners. We’ve had quite a few people who wanted to give their decks some much needed TLC already call us to ask, “How do I protect my wood deck?”

Protecting a hardwood deck is pretty easy, as long as you use more…

To anyone who regularly reads, or just found this Hardwood decking blog for the first time, I just wanted to say, THANKS!

Hopefully you’ve found the posts here to be helpful. Sure, some of them are opinionated, but everything on this blog is backed by facts, reviews, and customer experiences.

With that said, I’d like to send a request out there to you…Help make this blog even better!

• What information would you like to see?
• Is there any wood that you want to learn more about?
• Do you find the posts informative?
• Are you a past customer? What was it like working with the hardwood we sent you? (send us pictures too and we’ll feature you in the blog!)
• Tell us what you think about the blog and the posts in general.

Again, thanks for your participation! It’s because of you that this blog is what it is today!

Bocote wood makes some of the finest instruments, furniture, and collector’s items in the world. Originating from Mexico, Bocote has been turned by some of the finest woodworkers to make custom cabinets, chairs, tables,  decorative boxes, and acoustic guitars.

As you can see from the picture to the right, the heartwood of this high end exotic hardwood a flows between brown and golden brown in color with variegated irregular markings. On quarter sawn surfaces, Bocote has a very attractive ray flecked figure.

What’s it like to work with Bocote? With a Janka hardness rating of 2200, you’d think pretty tough. However, Bocote works great with both hand and power tools. It can slightly blunt cutters.

You can finish Bocote smoothly and neatly with most machining operations. Mexican Bocote will take glues, stains and polishes to a good finish. Looking to make Bocote furniture? It takes nails and screws well.

Where can you buy Bocote? Well, Advantage Trim & Lumber, of course! Call today to check out our current stock of this beautiful and very workable hardwood.