The slabs part of the suggestion probably sounds dumb, if it's a planned thing or not, I apologize. Why I suggest the Charset Storage - Barrels mod though, is besides the slabs being another building block to work with, I'd love to see Silentwood barrels being included into the mix, since the description for the page in Curseforge says they can be made of any modded wood, plus it can add more color into the variety!

Here's the link to the mod: https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/charset-storage-barrels