Whoa. Those questions will require pretty much an entire education in wood and furniture construction. Don't be too hard on those salesmen. Their employers are just buying stuff from a factory and don't educate the employees about the products. There's a lot to learn in the woodworking field. 1. The short answer is that neither solid wood nor veneered furniture are better. Badly made furniture is bad and well crafted furniture is good. I wish I could locate the original source, but I've been informed that studies conducted by the Smithsonian revealed that veneered furniture tended to survive longer than solid wood pieces. I cannot find the source but I suspect this is because a lot of solid wood furniture is built for utilitarian purposes and is more likely to be tossed than many veneered pieces which can be highly decorative and are treasured by collectors. A lot of the period furniture found in museums use veneer and those who aren't woodworkers just assume it's all solid. Veneer got a bad reputation due to companies like Sauder that mass-produced a large quantity of cheap furnishings by covering flaky particle board with thin veneers. This is not the fault of veneer that it was used poorly. Other companies stuck veneer across pieces of solid wood then humidity-related expansion and contraction caused it to fall off. Solid wood is assumed to be superior by many because dents and scratches can be sanded out and refinished. A gouge in solid wood doesn't look as bad as a gouge in veneer that reveals mdf underneath. However, solid wood does have a major limitation in that it shrinks, grows, cups, twists and warps as the humidity of the surrounding environment changes. This movement cannot be prevented, it can only be directed. Sometimes uneducated designers attempt to force the solid wood to stay in place to get a particular aesthetic and this results in furniture that self-destructs. Those designers should have used veneer instead. Veneer is thin enough that the movement can be eliminated by gluing veneers to both sides of a stable substance like plywood, mdf or particle board to create a panel that remains pretty much the same shape and size at all times. The thin veneer cuts also make it possible to take one highly figured board and arrange the slices of it into matching patterns. If you ever see furniture with the grain arranged in patterns, it is likely veneer. So the answer is that solid wood is best used in places likely to be abused while veneer is best used for decorative reasons, or for surfaces that need to remain stable to prevent the furniture from breaking itself apart. When I do veneer work, I make sure that I put pieces of solid wood in the corners and other areas likely to get damaged. This utilizes both materials to their best advantage. Furniture that is destined for heavy abuse is best made from solid wood. No one would want fancy decorative patterns on utilitarian pieces anyway. 2. Just about any kind of material can be used underneath veneer. MDF, particle board, plywood and solid wood are all common. Each one has advantages and disadvantages. Your concern about mdf is somewhat on target, many of them do contain a lot of chemicals but that is true for most engineered woods including plywood. These days it is possible to get formaldehyde-free versions. Also, professional lumber suppliers sell mdf and particle board that are much tougher and more damage-resistant than the stuff used in cheap furnishings. MDF: This has the smoothest surface of the commonly used substrates for veneer. It is a stable material that won't change much in length or width as humidity changes. It has the advantage of being easier to work with than particle board. Downsides are that it is more likely to sag than most other substrates, is heavy and with the exception of water-proof versions, water will damage it quickly. In practice, a properly made veneer panel will prevent water from reaching the MDF core unless it's subjected to standing water for some time. Particle Board: This is much lighter than MDF, is almost as smooth on the surface and is less prone to sagging. It's more of a pain to work with however and the edges are easily damaged. If the edges are protected by solid wood, that becomes a non-issue. Like MDF, it is very stable. Plywood: Strong, durable, stable and usually much lighter than MDF or particle board. The downside is that the surface is not perfectly flat or uniform and this sometimes shows through to the surface of any veneer applied to it. Those large, dead-flat conference tables with mirror finishes likely have mdf or particle board under the veneer and not plywood. Solid wood: This is a viable option but veneered furniture made this way loses out on the stability advantage of engineered products. Veneered solid wood will more or less act just like solid wood. No one will get a modern conference table with this technique. If you see this, it's likely done to save money on materials by using cheap wood then applying a skin of expensive wood over that. Sometimes the veneer is a rare exotic species which is only sold as veneer. That poplar and cherry veneer bed frame? It could very well be poplar with a skin of cherry. I'd have to see it in person to know. 3. I don't know anything about that particular brand of furniture so I can't help with this question. If it doesn't specifically say that cherry wood is used, then it's probably a cheap, lightweight material that's been stained to a "cherry finish". This post was edited by JAAune on Sat, May 31, 14 at 21:36

Two things you need to know about solid wood. 1. Wood moves. You cannot stop it but you must allow for it. It is anisotropic. I tell people it's analogous to people putting on weight. If I put on 50 lbs, I would not get much taller. Wood expands (and contracts) minimally in length (along the grain) with absorption (and desorption ) of moisture. It will expand and contract more in two directions, (a) radially, from the center of the tree out and (b) tangentially, along the growth rings, i.e., around the circumference. For most woods, the tangential is approximately double the radial. This is why if you see some dried firewood, you'll usually see a pie-piece shaped crack/void. It's also why plain-sawn wood can cup. If I put on 50 lb, I'd probably put on a significant "beer belly" (front to back) and a little bit less of "muffin top." (side to side) This is why you would never put a solid door inset into a cabinet. In the dry season, it'd have a big gap and in the wet season you may not be able to get it open. As to whether or not it might warp, it depends on how the wood is chosen and what the grain pattern is like. Quarter-sawn wood will have maximal expansion in thickness and minimal in width and less tendency to warp, other things being equal. 2, Wood has planes of weakness and planes of strength. Did you ever see martial arts hit a piece of wood and have it break? Did you ever notice that the grain is running up and down and not between the hands supporting it? Otherwise, they could probably never break it. The wood is weakest up and down the tree. In your second scenario, the grain will be running perpendicular to the rails (horizontal pieces) and if that's only a couple inches wide, it will be very weak. Compound that with the expansion issue above and this is not an option I would ever choose. That is why the "5 piece" AKA frame and panel, is the most common construction method. The rails and stiles have maximum strength and minimal cross grain expansion. If the panel is plywood or some engineered wood, it will have minimal expansion. If it's solid wood (AKA raised panel) then its expansion and contraction is within the stiles' grooves. Solid wood doors often have internal expansion joints and battens on the back to retain them. Engineered woods do not have these issues. Sometimes a sheet, say MDF, is routed out to look like a raised panel, but it's really still just a sheet of MDF. If the corners are rounded and not square, that's the tip-off. https://www.popularwoodworking.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/WoodMovement.pdf https://www.thisiscarpentry.com/2010/09/03/moisture-content-wood-movement/

Walnut can certainly show a good deal of variance in grain structure and color/tone. Mahogany is notoriously bad for this as well. A lot of times, when a cabinet shop purchases material, that solid wood may not be coming from the same trees or forest as the veneers are. This is where "Standard", "Select", and "Premium" grades usually come in. There needs to be a selection process prior to assembly to ensure that the grain structure or colors are going to match in the end. This slows down the process, ergo + labor, + lost opportunity cost in the shop -BUT- a more uniform product in the end. With veneers, you may be paying extra for grain matching, book matching, or slip matching—which can get very expensive, very fast. All of these things drastically increase the amount of attention needed in manufacturing and it caters the entire assembly/milling process to whatever the end-goal is. As for finding or making frame-and-panel doors that are entirely veneered... We can't speak to that since it's something we don't do. The only benefits I can imagine this has is driving price down, speeding up production, and allowing greater control for a uniform color/tone. All of this at the cost of a product that looks real, but... isn't. EDIT: I realize I never answered the last part of that question. If a person has the mindset that when a door gets scratched or dented then it needs to get replaced then a veneer door will last just as long as a solid wood door, with the exception being water damage. More specifically, what I'm talking about here is a door's ability to remain looking presentable until it needs to be addressed. In this case, veneered doors and solid doors will last a similar amount of time. When talking about durability, a door's ability to "hold up over time", IF you have the mindset to fix or refinish a door, is where a solid wood door will shine. Because the veneer on a veneered panel is so thin (industry standard in the US is about 0.6mm, premium veneers can get thicker), we're talkin' less than a 1/32", it becomes incredibly difficult to sand through a finish and stop at the veneer in a repeatable, time-efficient manner. With solid wood, you can work a little bit past your finish and sand into the surface of the wood and there will still be more wood... because it's 100% solid wood! Solid wood doors, if they're made from a nice species of wood will likely be worth the time and effort to refinish, thereby increasing their lifespan. A decent finish should last at least 8-10 years. A great finish will last 15+ years, depending how they're handled. Keep in mind, completely refinishing doors isn't cheap. Many times, a good finish can be 75%-100% the total cost of the unfinished doors themselves. If cabinet doors get refinished professionally, you will get charged for the normal cost of a good quality finish, PLUS the time/labor of sanding through the old finish and making repairs. All of that will cost maybe 75% the total value of the original doors (including their original finish) but should cost less than buying new solid wood doors. If you're a DIY-er or you "know a guy", many times you can get this done cheaper. Be warned though, good finishing requires a lot of experience, talent, and quality products.

I would use veneers for the carcasses and then use a real wood for the frontals. if you are having a shaker style door then I would use solid wood for the frame of the doors and add a veneer panel for the centre. Veneered boards are more stable in an environment where there is different temperatures, humidity moisture etc. Solid wood will move, twist, warp etc.