The Rudimentary Care Needed for Wooden Furniture

Wooden furniture is an artistic showpiece with its unadorned patterns and colors. Moreover, quality wooden furniture can last for generations with an nearly unchanged appearance. But there is a price to fork out and that is general care and attention.

Regular management

To start off with we must look at the rudiments that apply to all types of wooden furniture. The most crucial one is easy – wood despises humidity. Therefore, don’t use wet rags for cleaning, in their place use a soft cloth or vacuum cleaner with a brush attachment. Immediately dry all spills and do whatever is necessary to keep the furniture dry. Only ever place furniture in areas that have a reasonably stable temperature and where the humidity is neither high nor low. If you have portable heaters or wall mounted heater in your room, keep your furniture at a distance from them.

Keep furniture away from sunlight as it can harm the wood. Sunlight fades wood and can be the cause of color fading. Permanent damage can be caused over a length of time. Hot items can cause instant damage, so avoid placing items such a hot crockery, lights and other such bits on it. Having wooden furniture in a room means keeping a set of mats at hand as a first choice they should be made of cork, because plastic or rubber mats can soften and damage the finish). With these mats you can shield the surface of the wood when positioning items on it such as hot cups and sharp objects.

Types of finishes

After the general care we need to look at more specific care for each type of wood surface. Soft (oiled), painted and hard wood, which has varnish and shellac, are the three normal kinds of wood finishes. Although painted finishing can be comfortably distinguished, the others are not so easy.

Once you have discounted a painted finish then, in a discreet spot, rub a little linseed into the surface. If it is soaked up, the facet is oiled. If not, persist with a drop of of acetone. While polyurethane sheds acetone like water, lacquer disintegrates in seconds. Varnishes and shellacs both become tacky after minute. Now to find out which of the two finishes it is; place a few drops of alcohol over the area and you will see that shellac reacts quickly.

Look out for the next article in wood furniture maintenance where we will explore these different types of finishes.