Do's

Protect you handcrafted furniture from direct sunlight.

Regular dusting with a lint free soft cloth can keep your furniture looking new.

Cover the bottoms of accessories and other tabletop items with felt to prevent scratching.

Use coasters under glasses to prevent water marks.

Use a protective plate under flower vases filled with water to keep moisture from drawing into the wood.

Applying a coat of paste wax or lemon oil over the surface of your hand crafted furniture will enhance the look as the piece ages and beautifies.

Don't

Never let water stand on a wood surface.

Abrasive cleaners or any other cleaner not made for wood products should be avoided. Abrasive cleaners may harm the finish and color.

 Position your furniture directly in sunlight. Exposure to the sun's rays can dry out the wood and actually bleach out the color.

Proper maintenance and care of your furniture will lead to use and enjoyment for generations, ensuring a richness and warmth to the  finish.

Lacquers

Pre-catalyzed Lacquers provide a durable, tough finish, low maintenance, and require very little care. Lacquers can normally withstand short term wine, water and coffee spills. However, all spills should be mopped up as quickly as possible. Surfaces should be cleaned with a soft, slightly damp cloth, followed at once by rubbing with a dry cloth, to remove fingerprints and smudges. Generally, all Carriage Hill Wood Crafters furniture is finished with 2-3 applications of a sealer followed by 3-4 applications of pre-catalyzed  Lacquer.

Do not use oiled or treated cloths on waxed finishes. If a higher level of gloss is desired, a paste wax can be used. Applying a coat of paste wax or lemon oil over the surface of the piece enhances the final look as the piece ages and beautifies.

Linseed Oil/Varnish:

Varnishes, like Lacquers are generally used for all furniture enduring the hardest ware. At Carriage Hill Wood Crafters, we use a blend of boiled linseed oil and urethane varnish. Each coat is hand-rubbed into the wood for greater penetration and higher grain visibility and depth. A total of 3 coats followed by furniture paste wax is applied to all pieces and rubbed out revealing a beautiful soft sheen appearance.

Oil finishes have been used for centuries to treat and preserve wood. Oils are different from most other finishes because the oil seep's into the wood and penetrate the wood’s fibers revealing the woods natural color tones.  Because of the oil's penetration into the wood fibers, oil finishes cannot be built up to a thick coat like lacquer, polyurethane, or varnish can. 

At Carriage Hill Wood Crafters, as an alternative to lacquer and oil/varnish finishes, I use a blend of Boiled linseed oil and Tung Oil, with a final coat of furniture paste wax to achieve a lustrous soft sheen. An oil-wax finish is reserved mainly for higher priced custom furniture because it tends to be much more labor intensive than lacquer, varnish, polyurethane applications. Although my oil and wax finish takes a while longer (3 or more days) to finish completely,  I feel that the other finishes are no substitute for portraying the wood grain's rare beauty.

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