Whitewood

I’ve purchased Poplar, White Pine, and Maple from Home Depot… I guess you could consider them all white woods.

-- San Diego, CA US Navy

I believe the white wood in our Lowe’s comes from the North American Crooked Tree. It produces boards that bow, twist, and curve and is largely used in the field of wasting my time trying to find two boards that by the grace of God came out straight. However, since Menards is becoming the People’s Republic of Hardware, I get sucked into going to Lowes. Okay seriously, I asked a Lowe’s employee and they old me that their white wood was pine and that their poplar was the prepackaged boards.

-- Don't tell her I'm in the shop!

I haven’t heard of “whitewood ” at the home centers around here, but I do know that they carry aspen. Aspen it much whiter than pine. Menards, and lowes both also carry mahogany around here too.

-- Julian, Park Forest, IL

Could by anything cheap that week, but most likely Spruce. It can also depend on where you are located.

Boards are tagged by manufacturer/mill, and it’s not hard to track down the source based on that.

do you mean an actual white wood. or the wood that they paint white

He means the dimensional lumber near the studs that is labeled white wood.

“Whitewood” is a term normally used for a bunch of different woods when sold as paint grade trim or molding. I’ve seen poplar, pine, fir, aspen, soft maple, and some others…

This is a term used similar to the way SPF is used for construction lumber. SPF is Spruce / Pine / Fir, and the species are intermixed and considered interchangable.

-- - Please help keep Lumberjocks an enjoyable escape by refusing to participate in political discussions. Simply spit out the bait and ignore the thread...

By reading this forum I have learned that wood sold by the box stores is by region. Most of the wood noted in this forum are not sold at either Lowes or HD here. We only have pine, doug fir, poplar and red oak with an occational soft maple.

-- Never board, always knotty, lots of growth rings

SPF can also be Hemlock or, as the lumber dealers call it “Hem/Fir”.
TRASH! Not even good for studs in an outhouse.

-- Gene

Thanks for all of the replies. I’m trying to match a piece to a mantle that was bought at a homecenter that was labeled as whitewood.

-- Do something nice for somebody