Do you know that up to half the weight of a freshly sawn wood is water?
This is the reason why solid wood furniture cannot be directly made by just cutting and joining them together. During its journey from woods to the place it has to be settled a solid wood furniture goes through numerous processes in furniture manufacturing plant to get that perfect product required. The wood is carefully dried before crafting the furniture, retaining just enough moisture for it to adapt as per the relative humidity in your home. The wood used for making furniture continues to shrink and expand in response to changes in relative humidity.
Basically, wood furniture has THREE enemies: Moist or Humidity, Dust and Direct Sunlight. All these factors can leave stains, the drapery loose their colour. Like your own skin, solid wood furniture gives a natural response to extremely dry air by losing moisture and shrinking a bit. You might have noticed this several times when you find difficulty in opening the wooden doors or cabinets in high humidity areas like kitchen or bathrooms. The opposite is observed on wooden windows facing sun that open at their own when not latched during summers. And then it works properly when the relative humidity rises. So how to tackle with this humidity factor? How to clean wooden furniture? How to make wood furniture last long? Read on to know all about wood!
Tackling with Humidity
If you are living in coastal areas and don’t have an air conditioner or dehumidifier, your home’s relative humidity may get too high. Parts of your wood furniture may absorb excess moisture from the air and expand, perhaps causing drawers to stick. This will correct itself as your home’s relative humidity decreases. For the areas where you cannot put air conditioners or dehumidifiers – try out using a small cooler without using water pump for a certain time. It works!
Sudden temperature fluctuations also result in damaging wood furniture. During the heating period, wood gets dried therefore it is advisable to moisten home air during such period.
Tackling with Dust
Dust wooden furniture with a soft cloth by following the grain pattern of the wood. Dust often to remove everyday abrasive particles from wood surfaces. Before dusting, moisten the cloth lightly with a spray product as a dry cloth can leave hairline scratches on the finish.
Tackling with Direct Sunlight
While tackling with humidity, never ever think of drying out your hardwood furniture by exposing it to continuous direct sunlight. This will, no doubt, will tighten the wood but will destroy or fade the finish. Draw the curtains occasionally in order of avoid excess of heat and sunlight direct on the furniture.
Wooden Furniture Como Cabinet
Tips for Caring and Cleaning Wooden Furniture
During everyday use, your wooden furniture may be subjected to various mishaps and spills which temporarily mar its finish. Here are a few basic cleaning tips for dealing with them:
- Scratches: Fill these with shoe polish that matches the lightest shade of the finish. A child’s crayon or felt-tipped marker can also be used to cover them up.
- White Marks: For the white marks on wooden furniture, rub them up with a cloth dipped in a mixture of cigarette ashes and lemon juice or salad oil. Wipe dry and wax or polish.
- Cigarette Burns: Simply rub light cigarette burns with scratch-concealing polish to make them disappear.
- Glass Surfaces: Furniture engaged with glass surfaces love soft cloths and require most of your patience. If soft clothes are not working, simply sprinkle some droplets of water on glass (make sure the water do not touches the wood) and wipe them with an old newspaper. All spots will get disappear after few rubs.
- Leather Surfaces: Patent-leather surfaces should be cleaned with a damp cloth and should be dried immediately. Simple and steady.
No-to-Dos
- Wooden surfaces DO NOT like heat, thus, make it a habit to put a little tray, napkin on the table before keeping a hot vessel.
- Dear women, if some day you get a mood for doing the nails while watching television sitting on your classic wooden furniture, DO NOT put acetone-moistened cotton pd on wooden or patent-leather surface, otherwise you will remember it for a long time.
- DON’T forget that furniture is not rubber therefore you have to always evaluate what weight it will keep. Only in this way the shelves won’t deform.
- Avoid waxing urethane-finished furniture. Waxing these surfaces causes them to gather dust and dirt rather than repel it.
Hope you liked our effort in providing the best tips and suggestion for keeping your furniture new forever.
Also, we advise you to clean the furniture with special means as instructed in the user manual provided by the manufacturer.
Do look out for more informative furniture articles at Unicane Furniture Blog.