A while back I wrote a post about how I stopped wishing Richmond had an IKEA and started buying real wood from Lowe's instead. (Yes purists hate buying wood from big box stores, but as someone without a motor vehicle, it's the easiest to get to, the rare times I have access to a car.)
So let's do a quick tour to uncover the mysteries: Why is every board bowed? What is pressure-treated lumber, really? What are "furring strips" (there is no fur)? And why does an equally-sized board weigh so much more in oak than in poplar?
The First Lie: A 2x4 Is Not 2x4
Let's get this one out of the way, because some people still don't know.
When you walk into Lowe's and grab a "2x4," what you're actually buying is a board that measures 1½ × 3½ inches. Not two by four. The "2x4" is a nominal dimension — a name, not a measurement. Same with everything else in the dimensional lumber aisle:
- 2x4 → 1½" × 3½"
- 2x6 → 1½" × 5½"
- 2x8 → 1½" × 7¼"
- 2x10 → 1½" × 9¼"
- 2x12 → 1½" × 11¼"
- 1x4 → ¾" × 3½"
- 1x6 → ¾" × 5½"
- 1x10 → ¾" × 9¼"
The pattern: subtract about half an inch from each nominal dimension to get the actual size. Once you get above the 6-inch nominal width, the "shrinkage" gets a little weirder (½" off on the 2x6, ¾" off on the 2x10), but the rule of thumb holds.
Why? Because the boards are sawn rough at the nominal dimension and then dried and planed smooth, which removes about ¼ inch from each face. A green-from-the-mill 2x4 is genuinely 2 by 4. By the time it's been kiln-dried and run through the planer to get those nice smooth faces, it's lost half an inch. That's been the standard since the 1960s.
Why this matters in the real world: if you're building a shelf 36 inches wide and you want to know how many 1x10 boards laid side by side will cover that width, the answer is four (each board is 9¼" wide; four boards = 37"), not three (which would only get you to 30").
The Species Ladder
Walking the lumber aisle, you'll encounter three or four broad categories of wood, sorted from cheapest to most expensive:
Pine. The default cheap softwood. Light yellow color, often with knots, easy to cut, easy to drive screws into, dents easily under your fingernail. Most "common board" and most framing lumber is pine. A 1x10 by 8 feet costs about $14 at Lowe's. This is the workhorse of any DIY project where the wood is going to get painted or hidden.
Poplar. Slightly more expensive softwood-ish — botanically it's a hardwood, but practically it works like a soft hardwood. Greenish-grey or pale-cream color, no knots to speak of, takes paint beautifully. This is the "trim wood" — what you use for moldings, baseboards, anything that's going to be painted and you want a perfectly smooth finish. About 1.5x the price of pine.
Oak. Real hardwood. Dense, heavy, with a strong open-pore grain pattern that you can feel with your fingertips. Almost twice the price of poplar. You will know within ten seconds of picking up an oak board that its price is justified — it weighs significantly more. Best to pre-drill if you want to drive in a screw.
Maple. Even harder than oak, lighter in color, finer grain. Mostly seen at big-box stores in 1x4 and 1x6 sizes for cabinet projects. Premium price.
Cherry, walnut. Occasionally available, usually as project boards in the specialty rack.
If you're tackling a typical Richmond project — a shelf, a closet system, a cat-tree base, a small workbench — pine handles 80% of it, poplar handles the visible-and-painted 15%, and oak shows up only when you actually need the strength or the look.
Why Oak Weighs So Much
A 1x6x8' pine board weighs maybe 6 pounds. The same-sized red oak board weighs roughly 14 pounds. Why?
The short answer is density — oak's wood fibers are packed tighter, with smaller air gaps. The longer answer is in the growth rings. Pine grows fast, sometimes adding half an inch of trunk diameter in a single year. Oak grows slowly, maybe a quarter of that in a good year. The slow growth means more rings per inch, which means more cell walls, which means more wood substance per cubic inch.
This shows up everywhere:
- Strength: oak shelves can span longer distances without sagging
- Screw-holding: oak grips a screw far better than pine, but you must pre-drill or you'll snap the screw
- Dents and scratches: oak resists; pine dents if you look at it wrong
- Weight on the bracket: a 4-foot oak shelf full of books might weigh 40 pounds; the same shelf in pine maybe 22
The "this is why your shelf is twice as heavy as you expected" moment is almost always an oak surprise. If you're going to wall-mount oak, make sure your brackets and anchors are rated for the load. A drywall anchor that holds a pine shelf will rip out of the wall under an oak shelf.
The Furring Strip Aisle: The Cheap-and-Cheerful Section
There's a corner of every lumber aisle where the boards are narrow, rough-faced, slightly bowed, and cheap. These are furring strips, and they're one of the most underused materials in DIY.
A furring strip is usually a 1x2, 1x3, or 1x4 piece of pine or fir, sold rough or only lightly planed, often with cosmetic flaws — slight twists, knots, a little waviness. They are super cheap.
What they're for, technically: creating an air gap behind exterior siding, leveling out an uneven wall, building lightweight framework. What they're for practically: anything where the wood is going to be hidden, painted, or doesn't have to be perfectly straight. I've even used them to mount canvas as a backdrop for a video recording, or a quick organizer (with long-ish screws drilled in).
Picking Through the Stack: Yes, You're Allowed
Here's a thing you'll see at any home improvement store on a Saturday morning: people standing at a stack of lumber, pulling boards out one at a time, sighting down the long edge with one eye closed, frowning, and putting the board back if it's not straight.
You can do this too. Everyone there is doing it.
Here's what you're looking for when you pick up a board:
Is it straight? Hold the board flat-side down at eye level and sight down the long edge from one end. A straight board looks straight. A bowed board has a visible curve along its length. A crowned board has a ridge in the middle of its width. A twisted board is the worst — when you set it on a flat surface, one corner lifts up and rocks. Twist is impossible to fix. Crown can sometimes be planed out. Bow can sometimes be muscled flat with screws. Twist, you put back.
Are there knots in the wrong places? Small tight knots are fine and even pretty. Big loose knots that look like they could pop out are a problem if you're going to put weight on the board. A knot the size of a quarter in the middle of an 8-foot board has essentially zero structural value — the cross-grain doesn't carry load.
Is there pith in the end? The "pith" is the dead-center of the original tree, and you can sometimes see it as a small dark dot at the end of a board. Boards with pith dead-center will twist as they dry, even after they've been on the shelf at Lowe's for months. Avoid them when possible.
Are the ends checked? Small splits on the end of the board are normal. Big splits running deep into the board are a sign the board has been drying badly and might split further.
It's normal for the first few boards you pull off the top of the stack to be the worst. Stockers put the leftover/rejected boards on top because they don't move. The good boards are usually three or four down. Don't feel bad about digging.
Bring scissors, as you might need to open a fresh bundle of boards to sort through, and don't want to wait for someone to help. (This goes for the furring strips and other boards as well.)
A Quick Note on Lumber Stamps
Every piece of dimensional lumber has a stamp on it, usually in red or blue ink, usually toward one end. It will look something like "SPF S-DRY STAND&BTR 2 NLGA" or some other gibberish.
Most of this you can ignore. The two pieces worth knowing:
- Species: SPF = Spruce/Pine/Fir mix; HF = Hem/Fir; DF = Douglas Fir; SYP = Southern Yellow Pine.
- Grade: "STAND&BTR" or "#2&BTR" means standard-grade or better. "STUD" means it's rated for vertical wall framing. "SELECT" or "C&BTR" means premium grade. For DIY projects, #2 is fine for almost everything.
I use an angle grinder with a flap disc to quickly erase those marks, plus any splinted or sharp parts, when I use 2x4s in places where the boards are seen or might get touched, like a garage shelf or something.
Plywood, OSB, and the Sheet Goods Aisle
Sheet goods — the 4×8-foot panels — are their own world, but here's a quick map:
OSB (oriented strand board). Looks like compressed wood chips, because it is. Used for subflooring, wall sheathing, roof decking — anywhere it's going to be covered up. Strong, cheap, ugly. Not paintable in any nice way. Great when nobody's going to see it.
Sanded plywood, BC grade. "BC" means one face is sanded smooth and B-grade (small patches, no knots), the other face is C-grade (more flaws). Use the good face out. Workhorse for shelves, cabinets, anything visible-but-paintable.
Birch plywood. Pretty pale wood face on both sides. The choice for visible projects you want to stain or clear-coat. Smooth, takes finish well, looks good.
Hardwood plywood (oak, maple, walnut veneer). Expensive. For real cabinetry where you want it to look like solid hardwood at a fraction of the price.
Pressure-Treated Lumber: The Envelope Reveal
Now we get to the lumber category that is most commonly misused: pressure-treated wood, the green-tinted (or sometimes brown-stained) lumber sold for outdoor use.
Here is an obvious fact. Pressure treatment is only on the outside. The treatment chemistry is forced into the wood under pressure, but it doesn't penetrate all the way through — it usually goes maybe ¼ to ½ inch deep, leaving the inner heartwood mostly untreated.
This means: the moment you cut a pressure-treated board, you've exposed untreated wood at the cut end. If that cut end is going to be exposed to weather — especially if it's sitting in soil or pooling water — it'll rot just as fast as untreated lumber would.
The fix is to end-seal every cut. There's a product called Copper Coat (and several similar ones) that you brush onto the freshly cut end of a PT board. It puts back the chemistry that would have been in the wood if it had been pressure-treated after you made the cut. This is a vital step specially on deck post bottoms, fence post bottoms, and any cut end that touches dirt or concrete.
Ground Contact vs. Above Ground
There are two grades of pressure-treated lumber, and the difference matters a lot:
Above-ground rated. Lighter treatment, cheaper. For decking, railings, fence boards, anywhere the wood stays dry-ish and is at least 6 inches off the dirt.
Ground-contact rated. Much heavier treatment, more chemistry forced in. For posts that touch soil, fence posts buried in the ground, deck supports.
If you put above-ground PT into the ground, it will rot in three to five years, even though it's "pressure-treated."
Always check the tag stapled to the end of the board. It will say "above ground" or "ground contact" in plain English. Pay the extra $4 per board for ground-contact when it's going in the ground.
In general, you learn really quick in Richmond: using "wood anything" on outdoor projects exposed to the weather will not last long, unless you use pressure-treated wood. Insects, moisture, and temperature swings seem to destroy anything in record time. It's a hard lesson to learn when you're new to this... wood, even wood meant to stay indoors, always looks and feels so solid!
Fasteners for PT: The Corrosion Gotcha
Modern pressure-treated lumber is copper-based (the old arsenic-based formulations were phased out around 2003). The copper compounds that protect the wood will also corrode regular galvanized fasteners — pretty quickly, in a wet environment.
The rule, verified across multiple sources: for any fastener going into pressure-treated wood, use either stainless steel or hot-dipped galvanized fasteners specifically rated for PT contact. For joist hangers and other structural metal connectors, use the heavier-galvanized "ZMAX" line (Simpson) or equivalent, not the standard galvanized version. The thicker zinc coating buys you the corrosion margin you need.
The failure mode is invisible until it isn't: regular galvanized fasteners in PT wood will look fine for a year or two, then rust quietly inside the wood, then one day a deck board lifts off the joist with no resistance because the screws are no longer attached to anything. By the time you can see the failure, you've already lost some structural capacity.
Just buy the right screws. They cost maybe 30% more. They'll last twenty years instead of five.
For cautionary tales, watch some YouTube videos where home inspectors evaluate newly-built decks. Those can be an eye-opener.
Getting It Home
Last practical note: lumber is bigger than you think.
2x4s often fit (barely) into small sedans if you put the seat down and tolerate that one end will rest on the dashboard. But you might only fit a few.
If you know you don't need the full length, take a cordless saw. I have cut things in the Lowe's parking lot to fit into my car, when I still had one. (RIP old Yaris, totaled by someone else in an accident.)
How This Connects to RVA Tech Help
I love building stuff with wood. So, no matter if you just need a second person to pre-drill holes and lift stuff, or if you are new to this and need someone to help pick up supplies and tackle that DIY project... I will be glad to help. We will get it done and have fun.
— Johanna