People often pit "real wood" against panels as if it were the noble against the fake. That's wrong. I'm a cabinetmaker, I use all four, and I'm going to tell you exactly what each one is for.
Here's a secret the furniture marketing world would rather keep quiet: no serious workshop works only in solid wood. In mine, there are oak boards, but also plywood, MDF and melamine. Each material has a job it's the best at, and a job where it's a mistake. That's what you need to know before signing a quote (a devis, in French), whether it comes from me or from someone else.
| Material | Price per m² | Strengths | Weaknesses | Where I use it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solid wood | €100 to €200 (glued laminated oak) | Beautiful, endlessly repairable, ages well | Price, and it moves with humidity | Tops, fronts, everything you see and touch |
| Plywood | €40 to €90 (birch) | Very stable, strong, light, attractive edges | Expensive for a panel, quality varies widely | Backs, drawers, design pieces with exposed edges |
| MDF | €15 to €25 | Perfectly smooth surface, machines finely | Heavy, hates water, charmless left raw | Lacquered fronts, mouldings, painted panelling |
| Melamine | €10 to €25 | Inexpensive, factory finish, easy to clean | Edges need banding, cannot be repaired | Kitchen carcasses, insides of cupboards and walk-in wardrobes |
The gold-underlined words are explained on hover. All definitions are in the joinery glossary.
A table top, a sideboard front, a staircase: there, nothing replaces solid wood. It has a depth that panels only half imitate, it takes the knocks, and above all it can be repaired: you sand, you re-oil, and the piece is off again for twenty years. Its constraint is that it lives: it swells and shrinks with the seasons, and the whole art of the cabinetmaker is to design the piece so it can move without breaking. I devote a whole article to it: why wood moves.
Plywood is layers of wood, crossed and glued: it keeps the character of wood but without its moods, because the plies cancel each other out. A good birch plywood is more stable than solid wood and stronger than MDF. I use it for the backs of furniture, drawer sides, and for contemporary pieces where its striped , left on show, becomes a style detail. Watch out for bottom-of-the-range plywood though: hollow plies, poor glues, it warps.
MDF is wood fibre pressed with a binder. Raw, it has no charm. But for a lacquered front it has no rival: its surface is perfectly uniform, with no grain rising through the paint, and it routs finely for mouldings and integrated handles. When a client asks me for a lacquered kitchen or a walk-in wardrobe painted the colour of the walls, MDF is what I put under the lacquer, and that is precisely why the result is beautiful. Saying so is honesty; hiding it is marketing. Its known weakness, water, has its answer: for wet rooms there is moisture-resistant MDF, made for the job. That is the one that goes into a bathroom, and the problem is solved.
Melamine is a particleboard panel covered with a factory-laminated finish. It has real mechanical value: stable, inexpensive, no surprises in a heated room. You typically find it in carcasses and the insides of kitchens and walk-in wardrobes. But I'll be honest: it is not a material I love, and I don't overuse it.
Because there is practically nowhere you cannot put wood. For a carcass, the now does the job easily: real wood right through the structure, stable, and I build carcasses with it. Thick melamine remains the option that brings the quote down when budget comes first, with fronts and tops in solid wood or : the budget goes where the eye lands. And if a client wants solid wood everywhere, we do solid wood everywhere: my role is to tell you what each option costs and how it ages, not to choose in your place. In any case, the difference between a flat-pack piece and a workshop piece does not come down to whether there is melamine in it, but to the thickness of the panels, properly banded edges and the .
To see how I put all this together, have a look at my bespoke kitchen and bespoke furniture pages. And if you want to go beyond these four materials, from Valchromat to compact laminate via OSB, I have written the complete guide to wood-based panels.
Panels sold in France meet the E1 emission class, which strictly limits the formaldehyde in the glues. Once the panel is painted, lacquered or veneered, emissions are lower still. Where you do need to be careful is during machining: MDF dust is fine, and I always work with dust extraction and a mask. In your home, a finished MDF piece is not a problem.
Look at the edges and the grain: on solid wood, the pattern of the wood carries on from the face over the edge. On veneer, the pattern stops dead at the corner or repeats identically across several fronts. Weight is a clue too, and the inside of the drawers never lies.
Not necessarily. A quality melamine carcass with good hardware lasts for decades. What kills panel furniture is water, badly finished edges and cheap hardware. Solid wood has another advantage: it can be sanded and repaired almost without limit.
I'll explain exactly which materials I propose, where, and why. A detailed quote, itemised line by line, free and with no obligation. I speak English, so feel free to call or write in English.
+33 6 03 57 45 47Reply within 48 hours, or in writing: contact@agencementklein.fr
