If you were to ask different people about how to best take care of hardwood furniture you’d get more than a few different answers. Even industry experts have varying opinions but they do agree on a few wood care basics. With a little knowledge and a little tender loving care your beautiful Amish hardwood furniture will last more than a lifetime.  

•  As much as you may not want to do it, frequently dusting solid wood furniture helps protect the wood and finish. Dust your high end furniture pieces with a soft, clean, washable cloth made of lint-free cotton. Old cotton T- shirts work as well as diapers, cheesecloth or pieces of flannel. When recycling and reusing clothing items be sure there is no snaps, zippers, buttons or thick seams that can scratch furniture surfaces.
• Check the surface and edges of your furniture for wood slivers, veneer lifts, loose molding, etc. that a cloth could catch on and cause further damage.  Water and wood are not good friends but using a few drops of water on the cotton cloth, preferably distilled to eliminate any chances of mineral deposits, will help the dust to cling better to the fabric. It is alright and sometimes even recommended to use water sparingly on your Amish table tops and furniture but wood should never get wet or soaked. While Amish furniture crafters are wise enough to use RESISTOVARä to protect your museum quality pieces always use caution and common sense.  
• NEVER use a feather duster. Feather dusters will not pick up dirt and dust but simply move it around and also has quills that can scratch the wood surface of your valuable Amish tables. Dust itself can be abrasive so by allowing it to accumulate you can virtually be creating your own sandpaper. This will make it harder to clean the surfaces and cause a worn, dull surface to develop over the years.  
• Consider carefully whether you want to apply silicone oil to your finishes by using commercial polishes and sprays. Silicone is used to add gloss and water repellency supposedly to protect the finish but the nature of the silicone can prevent future refinishing or repairing of the surface.  

HOW TO DUST:

Tags: Amish, Amish Furniture Styles, dusting, furniture care, Furniture care tips, Hardwood Furniture, Tables

This entry was posted on Monday, August 25th, 2008 at 9:15 am and is filed under Amish Furniture Styles, Furniture Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.