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

Optimistically, before you made the investment, you already had a clear idea what you wanted to do with the piece, but if not, then before you get the first tool and begin 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 3 alternatives for finishing the piece, and they're:

Leave the wood "naked"

Paint it

Stain it

Each of these alternatives requires a bit of work on your part to protect your investment and increase the beauty and performance of the piece.

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

If you choose to paint your bare wood furniture, you have quite many to think about, other than color choosing. Type of paint, for instance. If a piece is to be positioned in a bathroom, you will possibly desire 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 provide 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 fine.

Now's also the time to consider whether or not you will have any sort of border or scrollwork on your bare wood furniture. If you are not particularly artistically inclined, there're quite a lot of beautiful stencils you can use, readily available at home stores (Lowe's, Home Depot), arts and craft shops (Michael's), and sometimes at chain retail outlets (Wal-Mart, Target), so you have got many options. Certainly, if you are artistically inclined or know someone who is, a hand painted border is a great strategy to really personalize the piece!

At last, you might decide to stain your new piece of furniture. This is my own favorite method of finishing pieces, although it takes the longest, and if this is the direction you wish to go, again, you have got several decisions to make, beginning with the type of stain you will 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 check which works best for you. Obviously, you do not wish to experiment directly on your new piece of furniture, so I suggest buying an unfinished wood shelf of the same sort 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 some fun, and enjoy your new piece of bare wood furniture, no matter how you choose to finish it!

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