So you have taken the plunge and purchased a piece of bare wood furniture. Congratulations! It is an excellent value for the money, and with appropriate care, can last for generations.

Hopefully, before you made the investment, you already had a clear idea what you desired to do with the piece, but if not, then before you get the first tool and start to work, it's time to plan! A bit investment in time now will save you a great number of headaches down the road.

Where bare wood furniture is concerned, you essentially have three choices for finishing the piece, and they're:

Leave the wood "naked"

Paint it

Stain it

Each of these options demands a bit of work on your part to protect your investment and maximize the beauty and performance of the piece.

The simplest thing you can to do "finish" your new piece of bare wood furniture is to let it stay in its normal state. If you choose this option, you'll probably wish to protect the wood by coating it in some form of wood protecting oil (linseed oil is commonly used on a wide variety of bare wood), but there're other products available as well. Always, always, always test first by applying a small quantity of the oil you selected to an unseen corner of the wood to ensure that it won't cause any discoloration or any other reaction in the wood. Once assured of this, you can safely apply your selected protective oil to the entire piece.

If you choose to paint your bare wood furniture, you have quite a lot to think about, other than color choosing. Type of paint, for example. If a piece is to be positioned in a bathing room, you will probably wish to gravitate toward a glossy paint, as these stand up well to the high moisture environment. For high traffic/heavily used pieces, semi-gloss paints offer a good balance of good looks and durability, and if the piece is planned for a lower traffic/lower intensity environment, then flat or satin finishes will serve you well.

Now's also the time to think about whether or not you will have any type of border or scrollwork on your bare wood furniture. If you are not particularly artistically inclined, there are many beautiful stencils you can use, readily available at home stores (Lowe's, Home Depot), arts and craft stores (Michael's), and often at chain retail outlets (Wal-Mart, Target), so you have got lots of options. Naturally, if you are artistically inclined or know someone who is, a hand painted border is a good approach to really personalize the piece!

At last, you might decide to stain your new piece of furniture. This is my personal favorite technique of finishing pieces, although it takes the longest, and if this is the direction you intend to go, again, you have got several decisions to make, beginning with the type of stain you'll use. Stains come in oil-based, water-based, or gel, and while my own preference runs to oil based, you will want to experiment to find out which works best for you. Surely, you do not want to experiment directly on your new piece of furniture, so I suggest buying an unfinished wood shelf of the same kind of wood from your local home shop and experiment on that. When you make a firm selection, you can proceed with confidence and start working on your bare wood furniture direct.

Make a plan, have fun, and enjoy your new piece of bare wood furniture, regardless of how you choose to finish it!

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