A new study shows that cutting down trees for paper, furniture, and fuel emits three times more carbon than flying.
The paper is here
I agree, that comparison is about as useful apples vs. lamp bulbs.
As a construction material, wood is almost certainly less taxing on the environment.
A lot of paper gets discarded sooner than a year after printing / writing, consumer goods may last a decade, but houses are built to last 50 years.
While a wooden house still stands, the land where its material grew may easily become re-forested, and the service life of houses can be prolonged - with maintenance, a house can last a century and there exist wooden houses many centuries old.