Stained Oak Furniture

 

When you introduce oak furniture into a room, you instantly create a warm and welcoming feel. Oak furniture is ideal for creating a homely atmosphere that can enhance the rooms style instantly. Whilst oak is a durable material, it can often suffer from everyday wear and tear such as heat stains. Heat stains are something many think are impossible to remove, but this isn’t necessarily true. Here are a few tips for you to help you remove those awkward heat stains from your oak furniture.

 

 

Using Heat on Heat

 

This may seem strange, but one of the most effective ways to remove heat stains from oak furniture is applying additional heat to the stained area. One very simple way is to use an iron. Before you actually apply any heat to the affected area, clean the surface down thoroughly and dry it off. Then place a clean cotton towel over the area that has the heat stains. Now you can run the iron over the towel, but be sure not to touch the oak with the iron as this will just cause additional marking. It’s also important to ensure you have the steam filtering through the iron, onto the affected area, as this is the main element that helps to remove the stain from the oak.

 

 

Old Fashioned Techniques

 

There are many different clearing techniques around today that have been passed down from generation to generation. One of the very popular, old fashioned techniques is to use toothpaste. Using 50% toothpaste and 50% baking soda to create a paste to gently rub over the stains, is proved to be a very reliable and safe way to remove heat stains. You could then try making a paste with salt and olive oil, vinegar and olive oil and even Vaseline to rub over the affected area and work at removing the stains. These different methods will all have different results, so if you do try one method and it doesn’t seem to work, try another and figure out what works best for the furniture piece you’re trying to treat.

 

 

Prevention

 

Whilst it can be difficult to protect your oak furniture at all times, there are a selection of different things you can do to prevent heat stains from occurring on your oak furniture. One of the best tips is to invest in some good quality coasters and place-mats. One of the most common causes for heat stains is when plates and mugs are sat on the surface without anything underneath them. This causes the heat to directly affect the oak and cause a stain. Similarly, if you apply a delicate layer of durable lacquer to your oak furniture, you can create a protective layer that will prevent the heat stain from occurring straight away.