Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Which One Is The Most Excellent Pick For Unfinished Wood Furniture - Pine Versus Oak

By Julie Lowry


The most readily available bare wood furniture is pine, and there are numerous grounds for this. Pine is abundant and, as a gentle wood, is fairly light and easy to work with. It also offers a good balance between good looks and durability, and survives better than many other types of solid wood in high humidity environments. It also takes marks and paints well, which are the most common methods of finishing a piece of unfinished wood furniture.

Cost is another often compelling factor. There's really no better value for your money than pine bare wood furniture, and with appropriate care, a pine article can last for ages. Its easy availability, attractiveness, robustness and price combine to make it an excellent choice when considering the purchase of a piece of unfinished furniture.

If pine is the most easily available kind of bare wood furniture, then oak is not a lot behind. While more expensive than pine (in part because of its somewhat lesser availability, but also because it's more difficult to use), oak is steeped in nostalgia and tradition. Many prominent pieces of oak wood furniture created in the Middle Ages are still all over today, a testament to the durability of this type of wood.

Oak is a hardwood, and as a result, will typically have more pronounced and interesting grain designs. Like pine, it takes paints and stains suitably, but where pine tenders good durability for the money, oak offers best durability, and generally requires fewer in the way of preservation and upkeep.

Owing to this, while pine wood furniture is completely acceptable for numerous applications, if the piece you're imagining is destined for high traffic and harsh use (a dining table or desk, for instance) then spending a little more and investing in oak is probably the better choice.

If you don't be bothered mixing wood types in your home decor, my suggestion would be this:

Make use of pine bare wood furniture for accent benches, book cases and other pieces where traffic and use will be light to normal. Also, pine should be taken as a top contender in bathrooms and other high humidity environments.

Use oak bare wood furniture for heavy load/high use pieces for example desks and dining tables, where its greater robustness will enable it to stand up to the rigors of regular use with relatively minimum in the way of upkeep.

Whatever type of wood you settle on, with good care and maintenance, your bare wood furniture should endure for generations and if you finish the piece yourself, it will be filled with a bit of your family's history.




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