No Early Retirement For Wood Stools

Who doesn't like furniture made of wood? There's a quiet beauty to wood, a timelessness, a hushed elegance that endures changing seasons, fads, and owners. When you buy wood stools, you bring the rustic feel of the forest into your home. You remind yourself of lazy afternoon walks through the countryside or a childhood spent clambering up mulberry trees. Whether solid or veneer, though, your wood stools require maintenance to retain its natural beauty.

The Usual Suspects

Moisture, dust, scratches, and dents are wood's worst enemies. Over the course of your wood stool's lifetime, expect it to get banged up, nicked, or cracked in more places than you would care to count. Its color could fade from a beautiful mahogany to a pale nondescript, sewer-water brown. After all, you can't subject your wood stools to heavy use and expect it to stay unchanged.

So, how do you keep your wood stools all loved up and pretty?

Dust Away!

Dust wreaks havoc on your finish. In fact, even a thin film of dust creates scratches on your wood stool. The more dust that gathers on your furniture, the more it peels away at the finish, eventually exposing the wood and making it vulnerable to further damage.

To keep the dust mites away, dust your wood stools regularly. Use a soft cloth. A rough or craggy one will only damage your finish. Additionally, slightly dampen the cloth so you can trap dust instead of sending it airborne. There's no point in sending dust flying. It will only land gobsmack someplace else, say, on another wood stool or on your dining table.

Polish Up

Polish helps your wood stool keep its sparkle. In choosing furniture polish, though, there is no need to tear your hair and agonize over having to choose between oil or wax.

Here's the lowdown on both. Oil will make your wood stools gleam with life. However, oil attracts rather than repel dust. When you coat your furniture with oil, it will blend in with dust, thereby making it harder to remove in days to come. But if oil is harmful, why do many people use it? The answer is that oil helps the finish. Note, though, that while it helps the finish, it ends up damaging the furniture. Over time, your wood stools' finish will lose moisture and will start chipping away.

Ultimately, your wood stools would be better off with wax. Wax protects the wood itself, not the finish. The best protection for wooden furniture is a paste wax that has more carnauba and less paraffin.

Refinishing School

Scratches and dents are as much a part of wood stools as wrinkles are on our faces. Fix scratches with wax sticks from the local hardware store. Then, apply the wax evenly, filling out the hole or the dent to make the surface appear even again. Use wax that closely matches the color of your wood.

When you buy wood stools, you buy them fine and beautiful. With proper care, you can help them stay that way for years, if not decades.