Wednesday, August 3, 2011

How To Treat Oaken Hardwood Garden Furniture

By Owen Jones


If you are going to acquire garden furniture, it is a good idea to buy the best quality that you can afford and if you have the money then hardwood garden furniture is the best. There are many types of hardwood, of course, but one of the most popular types of hardwood, particularly in the UK and northern Europe, is oak. It will withstand any kind of weather and if it is taken care of, it will last for a number of decades.

Oaken hardwood garden furniture is not cheap to buy, that is true, but if you consider the joy that oak furniture will give and the fact that it will last for thirty years if you oil it or varnish it once or twice a year, it is pretty cheap certainly.

In comparison, cheap plastic garden furniture might last two or three years, but then it will have to be replaced. So you can sit on plastic chairs and have to replace them every couple of years or you can buy expensive oak and enjoy it for the remainder of your life.

Hardwood is heavily sought after, which leads unscrupulous merchants to log it unlawfully. Therefore, if you want to placate your conscience, try to make sure that you buy your hardwood garden furniture from a renewable source.

What is more, if you buy from a reputable dealer, you will be given directions on how to maintain it, which will enable you to double or even treble its lifespan.

If your oaken hardwood garden furniture is delivered stained or oiled, you should asked the dealer how you should treat the timber. I think that it is better to buy oak furniture oiled or merely stained so that you can make up your own mind how to treat it. Varnished wood has to be varnished again or rubbed down.

If you live in an region where the weather can be severe in the winter or the summer, you could consider getting covers for your furniture, particularly if you know that you are not going to use it for a couple days.

Sunlight is practically as damaging to dead wood as the cold, which is why we stain, varnish, oil and preserve it. Fortunately, this is not an onerous task and a treatment once or twice a year will keep your oaken hardwood garden furniture in tip-top condition for numerous years.

There are many different kinds of wood treatment, so ultimately, you should abide by the instructions on the tin, but I always like to apply a coat of stain without varnish first and maybe even a second one to bring out the patterns in the wood's grain, then I apply oil, say, linseed oil until the timber is completely protected.

However, take note, this approach can go wrong. The wood can only absorb so much oil so do not apply more than it can soak up otherwise you will not be able to sit on your oaken hardwood garden furniture for a long time.




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