Wood is one of the most pleasant materials for making any sort of furniture, and kitchen tables are no exception. Warm to the touch, pleasing to the eye, wood kitchen tables also need to be resistant to the tougher treatment that they often get compared to other furniture. After all, where else in the house to people set down mixing bowls, house keys, wet dish cloths, and children's paintings and even do it yourself tools?
Prevention is better than cure so starting out with a table that is robust and also treated to avoid stains is a good idea. Using hardwood and the right wood oil will already allow you to avoid stains from food, drink or other substances. Of course, you can always invest in a sturdy kitchen tablecloth that may also have a plastic coating on the upper side.
However even the best-protected wood kitchen tables are likely to end up scratched or tarnished in some way. If you accept the inevitable, and are prepared to put things right, then this may end up as just a minor inconvenience rather than a major tragedy. Depending on the type of damage, there are a number of ways of repairing your tabletop. In general, wood is well suited to repair work, as it is relatively simple to touch up or to restore.
The first step will be to clean the surface of the wood kitchen tables. By using warm, soapy water you will already be able to remove much of the dirt or food that is currently soiling the surface. If you are preparing a scratch in the surface of the wood, then you need to replace the oil in the surface that the scratch has laid bare. One way to do this is to take a walnut (crack open the walnut shell and use the softer nut which is inside) to rub into the grooves of the scratch. After a while, the oil of the nut will be absorbed by the wood of the table.
In order to recover the original look of wood kitchen tables, and especially if the scratch still looks pale after the walnut oil has been applied, then remember that you can try coloring the scratch itself with a crayon which is of the same hue as the rest of the table. Finally finish the repair work by buffing with a soft cloth to make this part of the table uniform with the rest of the surface.
Wood tables can last a lifetime if you take some further simple proportions. By protecting the table surface with coasters any time that you set glasses or mugs down on the surface, you can avoid the white rings that can be so often seen as a result of underlying moisture reacting with the table. Felt-backed coasters are among the best for this use. Similarly, use table mats or similar protection if you want to put a hot dish on the wooden surface.
If your kitchen gets a lot of sunlight, you may also want to protect your wood table from the sun either by positioning it in a shadier area, or by using a tablecloth. If your goal is to have a wood kitchen table with a weathered or "family heirloom" look to it, then you might deliberately want to leave your table where the sunlight will fall on it, as this is the effect that this will have.
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