Do colours look best when they're used with the wood that they're named after? For example, Golden Oak, Dark Walnut, Cherry, Mahogany, Yellow Maple. Should Cherry coloured stain be used in non-cherry wood such as oak or mahogany? Should Cherry coloured stain even be used on cherry at all, seeing the wood already has a red tone?

Gar.

I kept getting into trouble trying to ‘match’ wood species and colored stains to get a uniform look but finally decided to listen to what my antique dealer grandfather always told me – “stick with a natural oil finish and let the beauty and color of the wood speak for itself, it’ll match just fine”.

I think he was right with furniture restoration & building and it holds true now with my audio projects. This picture shows my current listening room where the turntable is natural oiled oak, the speakers oiled cherry, the tuner oiled African mahogany and the amps SA mahogany (the fake cherry ‘picture’ laminate flooring doesn’t count). All quite different wood species but the natural look seems to blend nicely.