Wood is magic.

I know there is no way to prove that, but surely it can't be a coincidence that magic wands in every non-muggle nation are always made of wood.

Wood certainly seems magical to me: the story of a living tree perhaps hundreds, even thousands, of years old, is remembered and written on the living cells of sapwood, then opened and displayed in dazzling detail in the grain of the finished plank.

I try to take advantage of that beauty in using wood to build furniture and living spaces. After all, it brings a breath of nature herself to our world, and nothing is more magical than that.

Read some more about the nature of wood in the next sections: its origins, characteristics, and difficulties in building and finishing -- as well as a gallery of wood species.