I have some upcoming projects for living room furniture (end tables, sideboard) and the wife and our designer are requesting a very light colored wood. I am not really wanting to paint the pieces at the end, so I thought easy, I can show them some pieces of maple and that will work. They think it is too yellow and asked about white oak. I'm thinking they would just want painted pieces if I was not involved
So I guess the question is what wood species should I try to target with this to get the most neutral light color? My experience here is that there is a ton of variation within species and I could end up with white oak that has a pink or yellow cast to it as well. I think something trending toward a light grey color is what they would be happy with.
What I have available to me locally is Maple (hard/soft/birdseye/curly) and White Oak (4/4 QS, up to 8/4 rift/plain) that I would consider "light" in color. I'm assuming Red Oak is too dark.
In y'alls experience working with white oak how hard is it to select skip planed 4/4 and 8/4 boards that match up well in color? Is getting a large stack of grey-toned white oak a realistic hope? I've just never even looked through the pile and won't get up there until next Tuesday. Am I being a snob not to want to paint it?