Introduction
When you don’t maintain and care for a good piece of wooden furniture, it's bound to lose its charm and majesty and may even break down. In that case, you can search for “furniture repair near me” and hire professionals to fix it for you. Let’s check out why you should polish your furniture.
The Reasons
- Protective layer - One of the primary reasons for polishing your furniture is to protect it from damage. Damage occurs slowly in furniture due to regular wear and tear. With time even an unused piece of furniture may get damaged due to constant exposure to the sun, wind, and dust. As furniture pieces age, polish is the best way to protect them from external and surface-level damage. If you have an antique piece of furniture or heirloom furniture, polishing it at regular intervals can give you peace of mind about preserving its value.
- Stain resistance - When you apply polish to a piece of furniture, the surface gains a lot of stain resistance. The polish fills up the tiny holes and gaps on the wood surface or simply gets absorbed by the wood. So, when different types of liquid are spilled on the wood, they don’t have any void to penetrate and stain the wood.
This is especially useful if you like to spend a lot of time on your couch or spend a lot of time working on your desk. Coffee and other beverage spills on your exquisite wooden desk are quite dangerous if the wood doesn't have any layer of protection. With polish, you don't have to worry about clumsy beverage spills.
However, that’s not all. If you have kids or pets at your home, sauce, grease, and food spills on tables, chairs and couches are going to be a common thing. You also need to think about more corrosive spills like pe and puke from your pet. When the furniture is polished, all that liquid and food crumbs can simply be wiped away. There’s no need to worry about stains that stay forever.
- Increased longevity - Furniture polish also allows you to increase the longevity of your wood furniture significantly. As the polish protects the furniture from stains, infestation, and external damage, it maintains its appearance and structural integrity for decades. Depending on the type of polish you apply to the furniture, it can also protect it from scratches. You can go on without replacing that furniture piece for a very long time.
Moreover, if the furniture has some sort of attached sentimental value for you, you want it to last as long as possible and probably pass it on to the next generation. Even if you don’t intend to pass it on to the next generation, you may want to hold on to it as long as possible just because it reminds you of a loved one who isn’t there anymore. Either way, polish allows you to achieve those things and make the furniture last as long as possible.
- Allergy and sickness - If you have people in your home who have allergies and chronic issues like asthma, you can manage their allergic reaction and decrease its severity by polishing your furniture. When you polish the furniture regularly, it doesn’t emit wood dust and dust doesn’t accumulate and stick on it either.
That means there are fewer allergens in the air that can trigger those allergies. As a bonus, your furniture will keep looking brand new as it receives regular polishing. When someone visits your home, they’ll be astonished by the marvelous condition and beautiful and neat appearance of all the furniture in your home.
- Appearance - As mentioned above, polishing your furniture on the regular, helps to preserve its appearance. When guests visit your home, appearance is very important and unavoidable. Even if they don't want to, they will take a subconscious peek at your furniture and scrutinize it from the top to the bottom. When the furniture is polished, it would look its best in front of your guests.
Polish adds a layer of sheen to the surface and makes it look glossy. Apart from that, polish is also very good at hiding surface scratches and grooves. You can also customize the overall aesthetic of the furniture by choosing different types of polishes. You can choose to have a matt or glossy finish or choose between a light or dark stain for your furniture.
- Types of furniture polish - There are two major types of wood polish finish - surface wood finish and penetrating timber finish. While the surface wood finish doesn’t penetrate the surface, it does leave a thick layer of hardened polish on the surface. That layer is bonded to the surface and very strong against damage.
It keeps the wood from coming in direct contact with moisture, oil, dust, or any type of spills. It’s also resistant to light scratches and does not allow the damage to reach the wood layer. Whenever you opt for wax, lacquer, PU, shellac, or varnish polish, you should choose a surface wood finish.
On the other hand, there’s the penetrating wood finish that’s entirely different. This type of finish usually involves an oil-based liquid that penetrates into the surface of the wood. It tweaks the composition of the surface-level wood to make it more damage-resistant. They fill up the voids on the wood surface and prevent dust and other liquids from penetrating into the wood to stain it.
Usually, polishes with tung oil or linseed oil provide a penetrating timber finish. The application of these types of polish is also very straightforward. You simply need to rub the surface with the polish, and it's done.
Conclusion
Furniture polish has a key role in maintaining and extending the life of your wooden furniture. It's especially important to polish your furniture if it's expensive and gets regular heavy use. On the other hand, if your furniture breaks down, you can search for “furniture repair near me” and get it fixed by pros.
