Whenever we buy a new piece of furniture, no matter how much it costs or which room it’s for, we always want to feel certain we’re going to get true value for money.

And a lot of the time, the way we can ensure this is by doing our utmost to maintain the furniture to as high of a standard as possible.

Now some furniture needs a lot of maintenance to keep it looking its best, particularly if it’s a delicate wood that has been treated or varnished in some way.

There are others, however, that although it might seem like they’d need a lot of maintenance, actually don’t – and oak is one of them.

What’s important to understand here first is that we’re not saying oak furniture doesn’t need any type of maintenance. All furniture needs maintaining to a certain degree.

But if we were to look at a scale at the amount of time and money that needs to be invested into maintenance to keep the furniture looking its best, oak would be right down in the ‘minimal’ or ‘easy’ bracket.

For example, one of the most basic pieces of maintenance anyone owning oak furniture can do is to keep it clean. A damp cloth – potentially with some gentle cleaner in the water, such as washing up liquid – wiped over the furniture regularly will go a long way to ensuring it continues to look its best.

However, linked in here is the need to ensure the furniture doesn’t get wet. The cloth should be damp, not soaking wet and if any fluid gets spilled onto the wood, it needs to be mopped up immediately.

The reason behind this is that for every type of wood, there’s one real ‘enemy’ and that’s water. From staining it through to warping it, oak’s more durable when it comes to this than other woods, but still, it’s strongly advised that you ensure the furniture stays as dry as it possibly can at all times.

What we’d also say is that prevention is better than cure when it comes to maintenance and so you should always be careful how you use and treat your furniture.

For example, it’s small things like using coasters on an oak table that can have a big impact – it might not seem that important, but if you placed a cup directly onto the table and it left a ring stain, that stain would take a lot of work – and potentially specialist equipment – to remove.

We know all too well how important it is you get the most from your furniture for as long as possible, as at The Rocking Chair, we only want to provide products that are going to result in the highest levels of customer satisfaction possible.

And whilst we offer as much advice as we possibly can on the topic of furniture maintenance, this is really all we can do – other than offer great quality furniture in the first place!

It’s therefore vitally important that whether you’re looking at our Milano furniture or any other type of oak furniture, to get the most from it for years to come, you do as much as you can to keep it clean, dry and stain free.

Being such a durable wood, this really is all that’s going to be needed to ensure it looks as good in 10 years time as it does today.