Lucky boy! You actually have 'timber merchants' within a four-hour drive? No, seriously.......
Where I live, in mid Wales, there are thousands of tons of 'Pudding-wood' growing and increasingly being cut - commercial junk that I wouldn't put on the fire - and NO merchants of decent quality dried hard-woods. Sadly, an old friend who was a commercial maker in Penuwch and could be relied on to get me some good stuff, retired a couple of years ago....... I have the same sort of issue.
As small makers, the amount of wood that we'll buy is, in reality, small beer for a lot of timer yards, typically 5 or 10 cu feet........
Anyway, I found out a long time ago, many timber sellers have rotating stocks and don't like uncertainty, so always know what you want - it makes it easier for these guys to say yes or no. What they have today, may be gone and replaced by something different next week. Also, be prepared to buy some stuff on 'spec' if they have a chance buy of a good quality bit of wind-fall, say a single tree.
Personally, I like Oak and if you can find it any more, European Oak can be very good, instead of the Bland American White Oak.
What can help, if you have the storage space, is to deliberately over-buy each time, especially the good stuff that can be hard to find and to build up a stock, instead of doing the rounds, looking each time with all the blood-pressure that entails.
Whatever, good luck!
