To the untrained eye, the wooden Arty bathroom cabinet might appear like a recipe for disaster. Surely a a bathroom, full of condensation and steam is going to rot away the wood over time and leave you with a warped and wonky looking, good-for-nothing cupboard, primed and ready for the tip! Many would then suppose that MDF furniture is better suited to the job. The science behind the chemical glues and resins that stick together the thousands of small pieces of wood fibre that make up an MDF cupboard might stand up to the moisture and heat better……. This would be the wrong conclusion.
The mistake is in assuming that all solid wood furniture rots when it is subjected to moisture. Solid wood has gained a reputation for these kinds of results because the vast majority of bathroom furniture in the shops is MDF furniture and you don’t often see solid wood bathroom furniture on the market. Cheap to make and easy to transport (in flat packs) MDF bathroom furniture serves as the best way for a furniture seller to make a pretty penny. I’m afraid to say that in selling your this furniture, they are also landing you with a product that is poor value for money. As the discerning wood connoisseur will tell you; over time, the wood will start to bend out of shape because the glues that stick the wooden fragments together at the core of the material will become softened by the heat and moisture. This compromises the form of the material, and voila, 5 years down the line, you have a bent bathroom cupboard door.
The smug wood connoisseur is likely to already know this, and is likely to have a solid teak bathroom cupboard already installed in their bathroom. This is because they know that solid teak is one of the hardest woods that our planet has to offer. And like all hard materials, it has a solid core that will not bow to the moisture and steam of the bathroom. The weaker solid woods may rot, but the hardest ones stand up to water without effort.
Here’s to solid wood, the real deal. Because all the best ideas come from nature.