Red Cedar queston

Simply a matter of taste. Western Red Cedar is used mostly as an exterior wood, but I've used it on the interior on many occasions (I've a built quite a few recording studios in the past and many of those had control rooms fitted out entirely in WRC).

WRC can be bought either rough, or planed, and often with a tongue and groove which makes a nice wall panel.

Nice wood to work with, tools easily, and its light in weight, so easy to handle in cramped quarters ... it smells good when cut.

Only minor disadvantage I'd note would be it's rather soft so may show more damage w/ time than some others on door casings, etc., in higher traffic areas, especially w/ kids...

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I woud agree that it may be a bit soft for traffic areas, otherwise, no significant objections.

One of my bathrooms is trimmed with WRC and clear coated with water borne varethane. 15 years and still looks nice. My bathroom doorway trim and the wall-cabinet doors have no dings/scratches/damage/ discolorations. A WRC toilet paper holder will not support raising yourself from the sitting position! .... * filed under "Bathroom Gymnastics".

Sonny

If you take some red cedar and plane it smooth, you will likely find a board with some beautiful color and grain.

I salvaged some old red cedar fence boards, and planed them, and I ended up with some really lovely dark chocolate colored wood. No knots in these boards.

All very soft, as mentioned by others.

I ran through a few thou bf of WRC this last summer making Adirondack chairs

I f> My son asked what I thought about using western red cedar as interior

Red cedar is the main wood I use for window trim. If you look after it. It will last forever. I favour Simi transparent stains as it will turn grey after 6 months in weather unstained. Havn't found an exterior clearcoat that lasts longer than a year. Some cedar coloured simi transparent stains look close to natural. Easy wood to work with and does smell nice.

On Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:14:44 -0600, the infamous Norvin scrawled the following:

To add to Swingy's notes, it is also a very soft wood which cracks easily (drill first, nail later) and is feathery when sanded. Final sanding has to be done after a coat or two of finish goes on if you want a really smooth result. Lots of PNW lodges are fit in WRC, usually roughsawn for the rustic look and feel. Ditto the old Sundance Meadows timeshare I used to own. Lotsa roughsawn cedar in that dude ranch theme.

It's good looking when used as an interior wood. Just work around its limitations, Norvin.

-- Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate. -- Chuang-tzu

Thanks to all that responded.

Here is a whole room, including cabinets, done in cedar. There is a picture about halfway down the page. Click on the picture to expand it:

I'll say. LOVE the curved doors on the cabinet at the bottom of the page.