One of the tv shows that enthralled me for a time (there weren't many episodes) was called "Connections". It was a series produced by the BBC and written/hosted by James Burke which showed how the development of one technology directly or indirectly led to the development of others. Part of the joy was in learning how things worked and the other was in the stories of how the inventors took inspiration from others and sometimes redirected it into completely different disciplines.
When fantasy writers make products available to our characters, we make certain technologies available to them as well. If wooden planks are a cheap building material, there must be a sawmill that produces them. In a medieval setting, a sawmill of this output runs thanks to a waterwheel. This requires a certain level of engineering skill and probably damming a stream, or diverting a bit of a river, to get a consistent water flow (wikipedia has some nice history and pictures). Wood also has a number of useful byproducts like:tannin, potash, pitch, tar, resin (http://www.engr.psu.edu/mtah/articles/colonial_wood_water.htm#wp). If you can produce a commodity this useful, it becomes a trade good (http://medievalwoodworking.org/articles/The%20Northern%20European%20Lumber%20Trade%20in%20the%20Middle%20Ages.pdf).
Now that we know some of the products you can get from wood, what can you do with them? Potash can be used: in making soap and glass, as a fertilizer, and to bleach textiles. Tannin are used in the process of tanning hides (into leather, not corporal punishment) . Pitch, tar and resin are all used aboard ships as sealants and weather-proofers. These components are of course in addition to making planks, shingles, masts, barrel staves, dinner plates, kitchen tables and so on.
Education is a clear issue when a fantasy author supplies these tools and technologies to their characters. Not just anyone can design and build a mill. Universities existed primarily in the large cities and innovators were in high demand. Secrets were jealously guarded. Who extracts the tannin to sell to the tannery? How did they figure out what the hell potash even is? Much of this knowledge would be handed down through personal apprenticeships or even full blown craft guilds. With literacy being relatively uncommon and books extravagantly expensive, someone generally had to show you how to do things. Control of this information was simple job security.
When we start looking into the details of our creations, we begin to scratch the surface of their interconnected nature (as in the title of that tv show). Exploring those connections leads to a greater understanding of history and the world around us. Once we recognize how things work in reality; we can, with joyful understanding, break with it.
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