Wooden furniture and its maintenance and cleaning

Wood surfaces have a warm feeling, they are pleasent and attractive. The wood is extremely durable,also a good sound and thermal insulator, and besides, thanks to modern methods of treatment, wood is easy to maintain. These are the reasons why wood is considered the ideal wall and floor covering in almost all types of rooms. Besides, wooden furniture can be found in every home – a variety of cabinets, tables, chairs, closets …

And no matter how carefully you treat your furniture, after a while it is certain that you’ll have to renew or repair most of it. However, in order to postpone the renewal or replacement of the old furniture, follow a few important but simple instructions on maintenance and cleaning of wood furniture.

Generally speaking, wooden surfaces can be divided regarding the surface layer, more specifically, regarding to with what the wood is coated and thus fore we can take measures accordingly while cleaning and/or maintaining our wooden surface.

Pure wood

Pure wood is the biggest challenge to maintain because you can’t use water in larger quantities. This type of wood the best solution for cleaning would be simple vacuuming and wipe with a cloth that has a little wood cleanser applied to it.

Varnished and painted wood

Most of the wooden furniture is coated with a protective layer of lacquer or painted with a thick coat color and this makes it easy to maintain. You can easily use water or any cleanser for that matter, but avoid too much soap because their alkali eventually take away the wood’s natural glow.

In the market there are special oils that can be found for wooden furniture and they come in two shades (darker and lighter). If you apply it once a month by gently rubbing it using a cotton cloth, and then polish it with a dry cloth your wooden furniture, floor or any other wooden surface will be taken care of.

If you prefer natural means, the best possible thing is beewax. Natural wax is has to be heated until it turns into a liquid and rubbed in with a cloth on the furniture (preferably flaxseed).

Rule applies: the more you wax, the glow will be higher! This procedure is sufficient to carry out only two times a year.

Exceptional gloss can be also achieved by polishing with linseed oil.

Particleboard

Particleboard, especial raw one, is very sensitive, an if you have surfaces like this the best way to preserve it and keep it clean is to vacuum. However, most particleboards have the top layer covered with plastic or similar mixed material, and as such they can, without any fear, be cleaned with water, sponge, soapy water …

Waxed wooden surfaces

These surfaces are very well tolerant to moisture so they can be easily wiped with wet cloth, but you’ll need to dry the immediately to.

Small tips:

• never polish the dusty furniture; if you do impurities will penetrate into the wood and you will have a hard time cleaning it.
• too much wax can be removed with a cloth soaked in warm water with a little vinegar; afterwords wipe the surface with a dry cloth.
• apple cider vinegar is ideal for cleaning hard deposits of dust.
• woolen cloth soaked in beer is a good way to wipe the dust, in addition to removing dust, the furniture will get a special glow.
• the easiest way to clean water stains is with the iron and blotted. Cover the stain areas with a piece of blotting paper ( strong absorbent paper ) and press it once or twice with a warm iron so that the wood could dry of. If you don’t have blotting paper, a water mark trace can be removed with toothpaste that needs to be polished after appliance.
• Candle wax traces can be removed by using hair dryer.