If any of you have been following the event that just took place this year… 2021 At this year’s furniture fair, one quickly notices a striking trend in solid‑wood furniture colors: deep hues dominate the palette. These shades evoke a sense of mystery and strength, yet choosing dark‑toned solid wood requires some careful consideration. Currently, the most common dark‑colored solid‑wood pieces on the market fall into three main categories.
01 Deep Walnut Color
Understated, restrained, and richly textured—these are the distinctive qualities of North American black walnut, perfectly in tune with today’s light‑luxury trend. However, it’s important to note that premium North American black walnut alone cannot fully meet market demand; as a result, many furniture brands use it as a reference point, opting for alternative woods and employing sophisticated finishing techniques to replicate its signature dark, warm tone.
02 Deep sandalwood color
The color of deep ebony is a naturally sophisticated black, and it is also a quintessential Chinese hue. With its darker tone and alternating black‑red or purplish‑black streaks, it exudes understated elegance and a sense of composure. However, genuine ebony is rare and highly prized, so it is seldom used by furniture brands; at trade shows, materials like wenge and walnut—whose grain patterns closely resemble those of ebony—are often chosen, with finishes applied to achieve an ebony‑like appearance.
03 Smoky color
Smoky gray, a modern hue of the year, reinterprets and reinvents contemporary makeup trends. It exudes refined sophistication, boasts a distinctive texture, and offers rich layers of depth. In furniture, smoky‑tinted finishes are increasingly popular, often applied to base materials such as white ash and oak veneers, with either fully open‑grain or semi‑open‑grain finishes. In terms of color expression, there’s both a translucent smoky shade and a more opaque variant, evoking a hazy, dreamlike quality.
Moreover, whether in black walnut, ebony, or smoked finishes, the coatings all exhibit a low level of gloss. 1-3 Spectral control is the dominant approach, complemented by a certain degree of full-matte finish; the resulting coating exhibits excellent transparency, delivering a high‑transparency, low‑matte appearance.